Share Your Closet? An exploratory study of collaborative consumption business models and consumers in fashion industry

Sustainability has become one of the key challenges in the fashion industry, which has been criticized for intense resource use, severe environmental impacts and wasteful business model. There have been a lot of new attempts and initiatives to promote sustainable fashion consumption. Collaborative consumption has been highlighted as one of the alternatives to conventional mass consumption. The idea of clothes sharing business model is both relevant as a business opportunity based on the idea of collaborative consumption and as a means to encourage more efficient use of clothing that will potentially contribute to reducing the resource flows of textiles in society and consequently environmental impacts. However, little is known about how different types of clothes sharing systems operate as a business model and a sustainability strategy. This paper explores in what way may Collaborative consumption business models of clothing contribute to reducing resource flows of textiles in the society. This study employs a comparative case study methodology of two clothes sharing organizations. Specifically, the author uses in-depth interviews and survey data to examine the business models and consumer perceptions that reflect environmental implication of clothing sharing organizations. Key findings lead to conclusions that the two studied clothes sharing business models are more sustainable in both value proposition and value creation and delivery system; however, they experience difficulties in value capture. As for consumers of clothing sharing service, collaborative consumption model has played a certain role in changing their purchasing behavior, environmental awareness and other practices. However, at present collaborative consumption of clothes remains a small-scale phenomenon with challenges reaching the mainstream market. The substan when translating and interpretingtial effect of reducing resources flow of textile remains unjustified.