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A recent study by Reimers et al. (2016) suggests that the attitude-behaviour gap, as it applies to ethical clothing, may be due to academics having defined it differently to the way that consumers do. The purpose of this paper is to serve as a direct follow-up to that study by employing their consumer-based definition in order to help identify the clothing attributes that influence the purchase of ethical clothing.

A consumer household sample in combination with a quantitative survey approach was used to collect the data, while structural equation modelling was used to analyse it.

In spite of the ethical clothing context, only two of the four ethical clothing dimensions were found to influence consumer attitudes. In contrast, all three conventional dimensions were found to be significant.

Ethical clothing has typically been operationalised using just two of these four dimensions. Ironically, one of the two dimensions often overlooked by academics, slow fashion, had one of the strongest influences on consumer attitudes. In addition, the cost of buying ethical clothing has often been defined in unidimensional terms; typically price. This study adopted a broader conceptualisation, defining it in terms of price, time and effort, and found it to serve as a salient influence over consumers’ attitudes to ethical clothing.

Academic research and consumer polls often report strong consumer support for environmentally responsible products (ERPs), and yet the proportion of sales they account for is often comparatively small. The purpose of this paper is to address one of the purported reasons behind this “attitude-behaviour gap” by measuring the influence of six relatively untested factors on consumer attitudes towards environmentally responsible clothing (ERC).

This study employed a consumer household sample. It also used a quantitative survey approach to collect its data and structural equation modelling to analyse it.

Of the six factors, four were found to have a significant influence on consumer attitudes: altruism, status enhancement, perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE) and happiness.

Altruism, environmental concern, PCE and self-identity have consistently featured in other environmental contexts, but less so in the specific context of ERC. Happiness and status enhancement have yet to appear in any study relating to the purchase of ERPs.

Despite supposed widespread consumer support for ethical clothing, it still often fails to translate into actual purchase. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the way in which academics have defined and measured ethical clothing could account for this.

An over reliance on convenience sampling and the use of student samples has also been touted as a possible reason for this attitude-behaviour gap. To address this, this study employed a consumer household sample. It also used a quantitative survey approach to collect its data and structural equation modelling to analyse it.

In contrast to the way in which academics have conceptualised the construct, consumer perceptions of ethical clothing were found to be influenced by four dimensions: environmental responsibility, employee welfare, animal welfare and slow fashion attributes.

Ethical clothing has typically been operationalised using just two of these four dimensions. Ironically, one of the two dimensions often overlooked by academics – animal welfare – had the strongest influence on consumer perceptions. Previous academic efforts had never employed more than three dimensions, and yet the results of this study suggest that all four must be present if an item of clothing is to be regarded as “ethical”.