Investigating the limitations of fashion research methods in promoting a sustainable fashion practice and production: A systematic review

The need of research is often a complex issue, where the standardisation of methodologies, deeply rooted in the scientific method, has allowed humanity to progress. Since the fashion industry represents one of the most problematic industries for the environment, it is paramount to investigate the handicaps of sustainable fashion research practice. The goal of this systematic review is to outline the most used methodologies in the fashion research field that are being explored to achieve sustainability. The findings highlight the fragmentation of the literature in fashion research methodologies in relation to sustainability. Interviews and case studies are the most used methods while other less conventional, like Social Life Cycle Assessment, have been also tried. Finally, an exercise based on Generative AI using ChatGPT was performed to inform future routes to achieve a more sustainable fashion practice. Together, this work reveals the handicaps of the fashion research methodologies and show an example on how ChatGPT can be assessed to help the fashion practitioners define research plans to achieve a sustainable industry.