Sustainable Fashion Communication: How to Overcome the Hidden Fear of Spanish Brands

Abstract

The Spanish fashion sector has undergone a notable transformation over the last two decades. The need to internationalize the business due to the 2007 financial crisis, associated with digitalization, has pushed brands toward different dynamics than in the past. At the same time, the use of sustainability as a sales argument by fashion brands began to become normalized at the beginning of the century and today, consumers weigh sustainable adjectives when deciding to purchase fashion products. At this point, there are many fashion brands that have decided to make sustainability their main theme in communication with their customers. On the other hand, the efforts that many Spanish brands have made over the last decade to improve their so-called responsible “behavioral indicators” should be considered positive and therefore controlling erroneous communication practices can be of great help to companies. If they finally succeed, they will end up stopping the phenomenon of greenwashing. To make sense of all this, we carried out research on 1,000 consumers to find out their relationship with the way of communicating of 21 Spanish fashion brands, and delve into the main information channels, the credibility of the sales arguments used by the brands and to what extent do they associate these brands with sustainable behavior or greenwashing.