Fast Tracking Slow Movements – From Slow Food To Slow Fashion And Back

Inspired by Van Bommel and Spicer’s research on the slow food movement, this study underscores the importance of broadening the slow movement’s scope beyond food, and slow food in particular, the slow fashion movement is gaining traction as awareness of fast fashion’s environmental and social impacts grows. This study also builds on prior work like Brewer’s (2019) exploration of slow fashion’s sustainability and strategic approaches for sustainability in slow fashion (Cataldi et al., 2017). Taken together, these studies (food and fashion) highlight the dual opportunities and tensions slow movements pose for sustainability and strategic marketing. The study unravels two sets of dilemmas: On the one hand, for Mass/ Accelerated consumption and production (i.e., fast fashion/ food), dilemma A reveals that “It is difficult to sustain both high speed and high consciousness simultaneously.” For Sustainable / Deliberate Production (slow fashion/ food), on the other hand, dilemma B reveals that “Deliberate sustainability rarely aligns with disposability.” These findings are consistent with that of Starving for Italy (2021), which highlighted some undesirable outcomes of the slow food movement using a case insight from the superfood, quinoa, in Bolivia. It also aligns with the contention that “Bottom line, these issues are complicated. But we all have a role to play, our food choices matter.”