Fashion Within the Big Data Society: How can data enable fashion transition towards a more meaningful and sustainable paradigm?

The availability of big data is creating a paradigm shift in understanding and driving public opinions, informing individual behaviors and expectations. Therefore, future decision-making processes within companies and institutions will be driven by envisioning capacities based on data analytics that can provide meaningful representations of social behaviors. The paper addresses the current and potential impacts that digital transformation and data analytics are producing in the fashion industry. In particular, it shows two dynamics. On the one hand, the advent of the Internet, particularly social media, has transformed the interaction between brands and their customers’ communities, pushing the fashion industry to embrace more sustainable models better reflecting their contemporary values, expectations, and behaviors. On the other hand, it explores how a new systemic approach to data analytics can empower the design process within the fashion industry to promote a radical sustainable transformation.