**5. Conclusion**

This chapter offers an insight into the sustainability aspects of the mass customization strategy. Mass customization is becoming a growing trend in the fashion industry due to the changing consumer desires; yet the strategy is already proven to bring profit and sustainability into the business. Digital technologies associated with mass customization facilitated an effective dialog between the producer and the customer while completely cutting down the human travelling or sample transportation during the product development process. Major sustainability benefits of the strategy are identified as improved relationship between the product and the consumer, extended user phase of clothing, waste minimization, enabling eco-friendly printing technologies, enabling repair, reuse, or recycling models, enhancing consumer awareness regarding sustainable fashion, and moving from global to local production. Even though mass customization still offers challenges to the producer in the operational phase, further advancement of technologies and growing consumer desires on personalized products would make this a viable business model that brings positive impacts to the business in economic, environmental, and social perspectives.

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**Author details**

D.G.K. Dissanayake

\*Address all correspondence to: geethadis@uom.lk

provided the original work is properly cited.

Department of Textile and Clothing Technology, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

*Does Mass Customization Enable Sustainability in the Fashion Industry?*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88281*

*Does Mass Customization Enable Sustainability in the Fashion Industry? DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88281*

*Fashion Industry - An Itinerary Between Feelings and Technology*

now expanded to a broader range of styles, colors, and fabrics. Nike ID program allows the consumer to customize a pair of shoes using thousands of color combinations and own embroidery designs [2]. Proper Cloth, a US-based apparel company, offers customized men's shirts with the choice of fabric, color, and component design. Famous fashion brands such as JC Penney, Ralph Lauren, and Land's End already offer a variety of customized products with a choice of fabric, color, and

Various consumer studies have reported a positive trend towards purchasing customized apparels. According to the group consumer survey conducted by Taieb and Cheikhrouhou [36], 82% of the teenagers and 92% of the youth and adults have voted for customized products over mass manufactured products. Deloitte consumer review [37] conducted in the UK shows that 41% of the consumers have expressed their interest in purchasing customized clothing, and 19% of the respondents have already bought customized clothing. According to YouGov consumer survey conducted in the US for internet users, 29% of the respondents indicated that they have already purchased customized apparel or footwear [38]. Those studies discovered the growing awareness among consumers regarding customized products and the related benefits. They are also willing to pay a premium price for a customized product. According to the consumer research conducted by Deloitte, 88% of the survey participants are willing to pay an extra price for customized clothing [37]. A total of 67% of the YouGov survey respondents indicated their willingness to pay a premium price for a customized fashion [38]. Most importantly, consumers will benefit through price customization as the price of the product is dependent upon the degree of customization [26]. These consumer researches indicate that price is not a barrier to adopt mass customization into the fashion business. Mass customization is so far viewed by researchers and practitioners through economic and consumer perspectives, and the literature provides little evidence on environmental or social benefits of the strategy. It is expected that this foundation study would provide a platform for the academia and industry to view mass customization from a sustainability viewpoint. A full life cycle analysis would be useful in quantifying the environmental impact of a customized product against a mass manufactured product, by considering the seven key sustainability factors

This chapter offers an insight into the sustainability aspects of the mass customization strategy. Mass customization is becoming a growing trend in the fashion industry due to the changing consumer desires; yet the strategy is already proven to bring profit and sustainability into the business. Digital technologies associated with mass customization facilitated an effective dialog between the producer and the customer while completely cutting down the human travelling or sample transportation during the product development process. Major sustainability benefits of the strategy are identified as improved relationship between the product and the consumer, extended user phase of clothing, waste minimization, enabling eco-friendly printing technologies, enabling repair, reuse, or recycling models, enhancing consumer awareness regarding sustainable fashion, and moving from global to local production. Even though mass customization still offers challenges to the producer in the operational phase, further advancement of technologies and growing consumer desires on personalized products would make this a viable business model that brings positive impacts to the business in economic, environmental,

design while maintaining order to delivery time of 4–5 weeks [35].

**28**

and social perspectives.

discovered in this chapter.

**5. Conclusion**
