Fast fashion consumption as a female competition strategy: implications for sustainable consumption

Purpose This research considers new and unexplored explanations of why consumers continue to engage in environmentally damaging, fast fashion consumption. It explains why rational arguments alone do not prevent fast fashion consumption or encourage consumers to move toward greater adoption of sustainable fashion consumption behaviours. Design/methodology/approach This research compared the effects of a “neutral” control and an “intrasexual rivalry” experimental condition on: (1) likelihood to buy, and (2) willingness to pay, of frequent female fast fashion shoppers ( N = 184). Findings Women use fast fashion as a conspicuous signal to other women, although this is not necessarily why they waste fast fashion purchases. Mating motives appear to produce a significant increase in fast fashion buying behaviour with women feeling intrasexual pressure to engage in consumption, and utilising consumption themselves as a self-promotion strategy. Practical implications Retailers tackling wasteful fast fashion consumption can demonstrate that sustainable consumption provides a superior conspicuous signal to fast fashion consumption, instead of solely using rational messaging. Originality/value Grounded in evolutionary psychology, this study uses three theories of intrasexual rivalry, conspicuous consumption and conspicuous waste to understand how both the volume and variety of fast fashion consumed are used as conspicuous signals in a mate attraction context.