Table 1 Framing categories for sustainable fashion

Consistency framing

“Aims to align the materials used in production with material flows that are common in nature” (Freudenreich & Schaltegger, 2020, p. 1)

Degrowth-sufficiency framing

Highlights that “clothing consumers [to] aim to meet their needs rather than fulfil all wants while avoiding (material) consumption as much as possible” (Freudenreich & Schaltegger, 2020, p. 4)

Ethical framing

Underlines the necessity of “fashionable clothes that incorporate fair trade principles with sweatshop-free labour conditions while not harming the environment or workers” (Joergens & Barnes, 2006, p. 361)

Slow framing

“Aims to reduce the number of trends and seasons and encourages quality production in order to increase the value of garments, all in contrast to disposable fashion” (Ozdamar Ertekin & Atik, 2014, p. 57)

Circular and zero-waste fashion

Aims to create closed-loop systems by bringing two strategies: “short-life closed-loop garments and long-life user engagement strategies both have an extending effect on materials in the value-chain, by either keeping products in use over multiple cycles in perpetuity or by extending the single-use cycle of a product over time” (Goldsworthy et al., 2018, pp. 49–50). This framing became more popular in recent years as both within academia and amongst fashion practitioners as the focus shifted to developing recycling, reusing, repurposing business models (Dzhengiz et al. 2023)

Sharing framing

Is about collaborative consumption, which is “ultimately about people sharing and collaborating to meet certain needs” through the creation of “fashion libraries [which] remain a niche activity, driven by enthusiastic entrepreneurs working on a voluntary basis” (Pedersen & Netter, 2015, pp. 258–273)