Sustainable Luxury: Managing Social and Environmental Performance in Iconic Brands

Can eco-sustainable fashion (i.e. fashion that is friendly to the environment during and after the production process) be also fashionable? While fashion is generally conceived as a process of recurrent change, eco-sustainable fashion implies fashion that lasts. This apparent contradiction in definitions is most salient in the fashion industry’s luxury segments, where change itself is considered an element of luxury and thus upheld by consumers. This chapter unfolds the challenges and opportunities specifically faced by luxury fashion brands in pursuing the eco-sustainability agenda. The authors take a theory-informed, action-oriented approach towards the six core principles of fashion, based on which they investigate how each principle can be utilised in favour of practising eco-sustainable fashion at the individual and brand levels. The authors contend that the institutionalisation of eco-sustainability paradigms in luxury fashion can be realised without negating the core principles of fashion.