Slow Fashion Strategies for the Guangdong Industry from the Perspective of Well-Being

With the continuous destruction of the earth's environment, the sustainable development of fashion industry is receiving more and more attention. Slow fashion, as the opposite of fast fashion, is a fashion concept that promotes the sustainable development of the fashion industry by providing high-quality products, slowing down the production cycle and reducing overconsumption. Although it is considered a more sustainable approach because it focuses on quality rather than quantity, how to improve the attraction of slow fashion to consumers is still an unsolved problem. On the other hand, especially under the pressure of rapid development, Chinese society from the government to the people is very concerned about the pursuit of happiness. Fashion has been proved to be closely related to subjective well-being. Therefore, this study aims to understand how slow fashion can increase customer wellbeing and increase its market potential. Whereas happiness is multidimensional, positive psychologist Seligman proposed a PERMA model for evaluating well-being, stating that human well-being requires five dimensions: positive emotions (P), engagement (E), relationships (R), meaning (M), and achievement (A). Based on the PERMA model, the thesis proposes a slow fashion attractiveness enhancement framework consisting of three different models and recommendations for government, industry, managers and designers to provide new perspectives and strategies for slow fashion design.

Through literature research, some gaps have been found: the research of slow fashion design methods related to consumer emotional needs has not yet appeared. Through the analysis of factor conditions, demand conditions, related and supporting industries, enterprise strategy, structure and value, government and chance of Guangdong garment industry, it is found that Guangdong garment industry is in a process of industrial transformation from fast fashion OEM to high quality branded fashion, with government support to transition to a "culture led fashion industry and responsibility oriented green industry". This is highly relevant to a slow fashion approach and consequently this research focuses on the Guangdong clothing industry as the research site. The methodology chosen is embedded mixed methods research (MMR). Qualitative and quantitative data are collected by means of interviews, questionnaire and focus groups. Based on the findings of the literature study, the most potential group of consumers of slow fashion was selected as the target groups for the interviews. A total of 38 consumers from 18 different provinces, regions and cities with different levels of development in China were interviewed. seven slow-fashion-related companies or shops in the Guangdong region were interviewed and an online questionnaire was completed by 763 respondents from different regions throughout China. The different types of data collected were analysed using thematic analysis, case studies, descriptive statistical analysis, correlation analysis and linear regression analysis.

The study found that the concept of slow fashion is less understood by consumers in China than sustainable fashion, and that companies' understanding of it is relatively vague, lacking clarity, completeness and consistency, with all companies claiming to have heard of the term but with different understandings of slow fashion. However, the market and companies are positive about the future of slow fashion and recognise its potential for future growth in China. Additionally, this study also explores the relationship between fashion and well-being from both qualitative and quantitative research perspectives, confirming that slow fashion is more favourable to customer well-being than fast fashion. Moreover, through the study of consumption types, it is found that different consumption types have different fashion consumption preferences, which corresponds to the different characteristics of slow fashion, indicating that slow fashion has a wide market potential. By combining slow fashion and happiness, this study can enrich the theories on the cross-development of fashion design and psychology disciplines. The development of models for slow fashion design can enrich the theoretical research in the field of slow fashion as a whole. As well as by combining well-being and slow fashion design methods and recommendations will help fashion companies and designers to adopt a more sustainable design approach, providing them with references that will ultimately benefit the transformation and upgrading of Guangdong's garment industry and even the broader sustainable development of fashion in China.