Sustainable Paradox: Navigating Environmental Concern, Intrinsic Values, and New Luxury Practices in the Fashion Industry

EasyChair Preprint 13251

Abstract

The growing discourse within luxury research on sustainable luxury branding and motivations reveals that eco-conscious brands should mitigate waste and pollution; however, luxury consumers may contribute to environmental problems rather than solutions. To address this paradox, our study explores how luxury consumers reconcile environmental concern with intrinsic values. It focuses on organic shopping motivations and engagement with new luxury practices, such as renting luxury goods or buying them from the secondary market within consignment shops and thrift stores.

Grounded in the theory of prestige-seeking consumer behavior, we examine these issues through the lens of perfectionist and hedonist effects. Specifically, we assess how intrinsic luxury values, which are functional and hedonic in nature, relate to sustainable luxury consumption. This exploratory study employs structural equation modeling with data from an online survey of 7,433 fashion consumers across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and France, gathered through an omnichannel service provider's CRM database.

Our findings reveal significant relationships between environmental concern, functional luxury values (e.g., emotional gratification), and hedonic luxury values (e.g., perceived quality). Contrary to expectations, the hedonist effect proves more influential than the perfectionist effect in stimulating organic shopping motivations and participation in new luxury experiences. Put differently, hedonic luxury values have significantly stronger associations with these eco-conscious activities than functional luxury values.

Keyphrases: Green luxury, New luxury, Sustainable luxury, sustainable fashion

@booklet{EasyChair:13251,
  author    = {Charles Lawry},
  title     = {Sustainable Paradox: Navigating Environmental Concern, Intrinsic Values, and New Luxury Practices in the Fashion Industry},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 13251},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2024}}