Young consumers in France, Italy, Germany, the UK, and the USA have high standards for sustainable fashion, but they also have distinct ideas about what it means, according to a study that was released on Tuesday, July 2, at the Première Vision Paris exhibition.
1,200 consumers in the five countries mentioned above, ages 18 to 65, were surveyed by Première Vision and the French Fashion Institute (IFM). The study demonstrated that attitudes among young consumers differ from those of the general population and between consumers in the 18–24 and 25–34 age groups.
In the last year, 58.1% of respondents from Italy and 65.7% from the UK (the figures for the remaining three countries fall in between these extremes) reported having purchased a sustainable fashion item for themselves. The percentages among respondents aged 25 to 34 varied from 46.5% for US respondents to 59.6% for German respondents. These shares were consistently higher than the population's overall share on a country-by-country basis. The same holds true for goods bought as gifts for family members.
What about the customers who, during the previous year, did not purchase any sustainable fashion items? French respondents (41.3%) and German respondents (39.4%) cited price as the main justification for this. The main cause cited by respondents in the US and the UK, respectively, was a lack of information (37.4% and 34.5%). For 33.8% of the Italian respondents, not knowing where to find such products was the most common reason.