This paper is an attempt to identify new ways to improve consumer’s response to ethical fashion branding through written mission statements and fashion films. It examines material by three fashion brands: H&M, Stella McCartney and People Tree. Additionally, it reviews and summarizes findings of previous literature in the field of ethical and sustainable fashion branding and builds a list of principal factors that play in the success of ethical fashion branding. The paper concludes with providing recommendations to improve the branding of each case study. / BA Thesis

This case study examines how luxury fashion brands communicate their sustainability practices on the brands' sustainability page on the company's website and whether selected luxury fashion brands are greenwashing and bluewashing. The luxury brands selected for this study are Stella McCartney and Gucci, on the grounds that both brands have different types of businesses and approaches. To understand the context, this study uses the triple bottom line sustainability concept by Elkinton (1998), sustainable luxury fashion brands (Godart & Seong ,2017; Wiedmann et al., 2009; Joey et al.,2012; and Franco et al. 2019), greenwashing concept by Delmas & Burbano (2011) and bluewashing concept (Sailer et al., 2022). To conduct the analysis, this study uses textual, eco-lexicon categorization developed by Thomas (2008) and the categorization from Milanesi et al. (2022) is adapted for visual analysis and the sins of greenwashing by Terra Choice (2010) to see the potential of greenwashing. The results shows that Stella McCartney and Gucci sustainable communication serves as their marketing strategy which encourage purchase and therefore it is problematic. Both brands use vague, ambiguous words, terms, and certifications and lack of transparency. While the images are not yet seen as a potential tool to communicate sustainability initiatives. Even though the brands are known as sustainable fashion brands, the result demonstrates brands show irrelevancies and paradoxes between what the brands communicate and their actual practices ; therefore show potential greenwashing and bluewashing.