SME clusters as the driving force behind the popularization of slow fashion

Marco Bellandi and Elizaveta Stark

European Planning Studies, 2025, vol. 33, issue 6, 832-851

Abstract: The textile-clothing industries and markets for fashion are a worldwide generator of economic growth but also of pollution and poor working conditions. They have raised attention to sustainability and the possibility of changing the status quo dominated by fast fashion. New concepts and slow fashion movements have emerged in the last two decades, with sustainable fashion niches and recent supportive regulations. While some big fast fashion brands try to become greener, a stream of literature looks at SMEs as the main driving force behind the popularization of slow fashion. The same stream suggests a role for SME clusters and intersects the growing literature on sustainability transitions in SME clusters and industrial districts. The paper works upon this intersection and proposes to discuss how evolving features of SME clusters interact with drivers and barriers to developing and scaling new fashion niches, together with specific business strategies and policies towards a new sustainable regime. Methodologically, this paper presents a qualitative analysis, liaising some conceptual elaborations on the literature to a relatively large and novel scan of the web sphere on European cases.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2025.2524000

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