Heritage and Innovation: Bangladesh’s Traditional Handloom in the Era of Sustainable Global Fashion

The Bangladeshi handloom industry embodies a distinctive confluence of cultural heritage, artisanal mastery, and socio-economic sustainability. Considering the fashion sector’s increasing orientation toward sustainability and ethical consumption, hand-woven textiles have re-emerged as environmentally responsible and culturally significant alternatives to industrial fast fashion. This study critically interrogates the potential of Bangladesh’s handloom heritage in addressing sustainability challenges across the global fashion value chain, employing qualitative content analysis of scholarly literature, media reports, and policy frameworks. The analysis demonstrates how handloom practices reflect the principles of slow fashion, circular economy, and community-based production, while simultaneously confronting structural barriers such as scalability, labor conditions, design innovation, and policy insufficiency. By situating Bangladesh’s handloom legacy within the broader sustainability discourse, the study contends that traditional crafts should not be understood merely as cultural artifacts, but rather as active agents of innovation and transformation in shaping the trajectory of sustainable global fashion.