Finding Sustainable Clothing That Is Right For You!
By Amrutha Srikanth, Simran Malhi, Nardin Eshak, Lydia Soliman
The Problem
The fashion industry is a major part of economies around the world, and yet it has severe environmental consequences. In order to curb the negative environmental impact of the fashion industry, several companies are creating and promoting sustainable clothes to reduce the negative impact on the environment as much as possible. However, one of the main issues with shopping sustainably is that it is extremely difficult to know the origins of clothing and the resources that went into creating that clothing piece. Even when a consumer finds the perfect sustainably-produced clothing piece in their size, they have to contend with higher prices and less availability. Many consumers don’t even have access to the knowledge of whether a piece of clothing they are considering purchasing is sustainably produced. As a result, many consumers turn to the ease and accessibility of fast fashion, even if they want to buy sustainable clothing.
The Solution
Our solution is to make shopping sustainably more accessible and to inform users of why shopping sustainable is the right thing to do. We will make shopping sustainably more accessible by adding filters that can narrow down the user’s search with the click of a button. We will inform users of the importance of shopping sustainably but adding a short description about how the sustainable item is sustainable (what makes it sustainable, and why choosing this item compared to unsustainable options improves the environment).
The Problem Research
Our target group of users were people who want to shop sustainably but struggle to do so. The participants we pursued for this research were teenagers and adults from the greater Seattle area; some were friends, and some were neighbors. We were also able to interview someone who produces sustainable clothing and sells sustainable clothing to consumers. For our design research goals, we wanted to really get that first hand interaction with our participants so we could understand them better and faster. We wanted to dig deeper with them on the topic of sustainable clothing, so we went with interviews as our first research design method. We also wanted a wider spectrum and general input on what people from our target group thought about sustainable clothing so we went with surveys for our second research design method. This research helped us achieve our goals of figuring out the struggles of our target user group.
The Research Results
After we surveyed and interviewed various potential customers, we analyzed and organized the results of our design research to gain a better understanding of their views on sustainable clothing. When looking at how high people prioritized buying sustainable clothing, on a scale of 1–5, most people ranked the importance of sustainable clothing between 3–4 (medium importance), and nobody ranked it as a 5 (high importance). The surveyed consumers considered easy access to clothing the most important factor when shopping for sustainable clothing. Cheap and environmentally friendly clothing was also important, but accessible sustainable clothing was the biggest issue at hand.
While we were mainly focused on the consumer perspective of environmentally-friendly and sustainable clothing, we also wanted to understand public opinion on fast fashion. Fast fashion is the general term for the clothing industry’s business model of replicating recent catwalk trends and high-fashion designs, mass-producing them at a low cost, and bringing them to retail stores quickly while demand is at its highest. While surveyed consumers believed that fast fashion was wasteful and low-quality with bad environmental consequences and exploited workers, they also believed it was an accessible and affordable way to buy clothing, with around 58.3% of surveyed individuals saying they buy clothing from fast fashion brands.
In the process of interviewing potential customers and examining our findings, we found that while many people do care for the environment and try to shop sustainably, cost and accessibility are the two main things people prioritize when shopping. Because of the high cost of production and struggle of finding sustainable clothing, it is more difficult to support and invest in sustainable clothing. Many interviewees prioritized the cost of new clothing highly, saying that while they wanted to support the environment by buying sustainable clothing, the price was often too high for them to justify. Instead, they opted for the unsustainable, cheaper option when shopping. Another theme we found while interviewing consumers was that many interviewees would purchase pieces of clothing because they were easily accessible. Even though many consumers acknowledge the importance of sustainable clothing, they often don’t buy them because they have a hard time finding sustainably-made clothing. As such, it is integral that we prioritize cost and accessibility of sustainable clothing for consumers when designing our potential solution.
The Design
Our proposed design is a website that can filter desired clothing items based on type of sustainability and provides information about sustainability and purchase options. As shown in the image above, when a person is looking for clothing online, they can filter for a specific type of sustainability (recycled materials) that they are looking for along with the normal filters (type of clothing, price, etc.). All clothing items on the website will have a description of how the clothing is sustainable (or not sustainable), where the person can buy the specific sustainable clothing item either locally or online, and what more accessible alternatives are out there.
Figure 2: Simplified design of potential solution with sustainability filter and more sustainable information about clothing piece
Our research results showed that accessibility and cost are the two main things that people prioritize while shopping, and that people have trouble finding sustainable clothing and then finding sustainable clothing that meets their needs or justifies the price. To provide a solution for accessibility, we utilize filters in our design to make it easy for people to find sustainable clothing in the first place. We also include different buying options (both online and locally) to make buying the clothing item as accessible as possible, since the user doesn’t have to go out of their way to do this research themselves and can pick the option that best suits their current needs.
To provide a solution for cost, we have filters for price ranges so customers can find sustainable clothing items that are within their budget. We also include a description of how the clothing item is sustainable to help the user make an informed decision, as they can see if the environmental benefits justify the price of the clothing item compared to their fast fashion counterparts. With the descriptions of different buying options and recommended alternatives, the users will be able to quickly find the same item or similar enough items that are within their budget in different stores.
With this design, we hope that you can easily find sustainable clothing that meets your needs!
