Carly Angel

IR 3-11AP #17
6 March 2019
Research Proposal

A Look into Fast Fashion: The Effects, Causes, and How to Help

Overview of Research
● Fast fashion is, an approach to the design, creation, and marketing of clothing that
emphasizes making fashion trends quickly and cheaply available to consumers. It has had
many bad effects on the environment like accounting for 10% of the world's carbon
footprint, and has caused lots of social issues for those living and working in and around
clothing factories. One of the main reasons that fast fashion has become as popular as it is
is because the average consumer does not even know that it exists and the issues that it
has. So people show bad buying behaviors a lot of the time like over buying and not
disposing of clothes in the most effective ways. Over buying is also being caused by
brands using scare tactics to “trick” people into buying more with fear that it will no
longer be available. Sustainable fashion is making clothes in more ethical ways to help
reduce waste and make better conditions for workers.
Background and History of the Issue
● This issue has been going on for a while, but has skyrocketed in the past 20 years or so.
This is partially due to the presence of social media. Social media has allowed fast
fashion brands to use celebrities to protect their clothing and have their own pages with
millions of followers. In the mid to late 20th century there was not a consumer culture of
wanting to buy a bunch of things in different colors. It was much more common to buy a
few basic nice things that will last and be very versatile. As modern pop culture has come
into play fast fashion has really taken off.
Problem Statement and Rationale
● The problems that are stated are how bad fast fashion is for the environment and the
people working in factories. This problem is addressed by going into how the slow
fashion industry is trying to make products ethically. This will help with some of the
issues that fast fashion has caused. Another problem that is stated lack of consumer
awareness and bad buying behaviors. The lack of awareness is what causes the bad
buying behaviors for the most part. If consumers were just made more aware then they
would be much less likely to purchase in large quantities and would be less inclined to do
things like throw away their clothes.
Research Methodology
● Research Question and Hypothesis
○ What are the social and environmental effects of the fast fashion industry?
 ○ How can consumers become more educated on what is happening in the fashion
industry?
○ What is sustainable fashion?
● Basis Hypothesis
○ The current state of the fast fashion industry has a lot to do with lack of consumer
awareness and bad consumer buying behaviors. The sustainable fashion industry
is unable to stop the negative social and environmental because of the reputation
it has for being “earthy crunchy”, to expensive, or not practical for everyday life.
Research Design
● The type of research that I am conducting is mostly descriptive. A lot of the information
collected was facts about fashion industry and just information. Then it was presented in
a descriptive manner. There is some cause and effect shown when talking about possible
solutions for the issues that are presented in the paper.
● The primary data collection method that is going to be used is a questionnaire/survey.
This was chosen because the end goal is to host a consumer awareness seminar, so it will
be important to gage how much people already know about fast fashion. It will also help
to prove the fact that most people do not even know what fast fashion is.
Operational Definitions
● Fast fashion - ​Fast fashion is a contemporary term used by fashion retailers to express
that designs move from catwalk quickly to capture current fashion trends.
● Sustainable fashion, also called eco fashion, is a part of the growing design philosophy
and trend of sustainability, the goal of which is to create a system which can be supported
indefinitely in terms of human impact on the environment and social responsibility.
Product overview
● The product at the end of this year is going to be a consumer awareness seminar for teens
in the community. The information will be presented through a powerpoint or some other
form of visual communication. I may also want to make a video of some sorts from the
night of the event to share with the rest of the school.
Logical Considerations
● I will need to get permission to use a classroom for my seminar at the end of the year. I
will also need access to a projector and the equipment that is required to set that up. Other
than that there is not a lot of other things that I will need.