Abstract

Purpose: The article deals with the proposition that consumers' fashion consumption behavior will still follow the consumption behavior of fast fashion, despite recognizing the importance of slow fashion. Research design, data and methodology: The research model to verify this proposition is topic modelling with big data including unstructured textual data. we combined 5,506 news articles posted on Naver news search platform during the 2003-2019 period about fast fashion and slow fashion, high-frequency words have been derived, and topics have been found using LDA model. Based on these, we examined consumers' perception and consumption behavior on slow fashion through the analysis of Topic Network. Results: (1) Looking at the status of annual article collection, consumers' interest in slow fashion mainly began in 2005 and showed a steady increase up to 2019. (2) Term Frequency analysis showed that the keywords for slow fashion are the lowest, with consumers' consumption patterns continuing around 'brand.' (3) Each topic's weight in articles showed that 'social value' - which includes slow fashion - ranked sixth among the 9 topics, low linkage with other topics. (4) Lastly, 'brand' and 'fashion trend' were key topics, and the topic 'social value' accounted for a low proportion. Conclusion: Slow fashion was not a considerable factor of consumption behavior. Consumption patterns in fashion sector are still dominated by general consumption patterns centered on brands and fast fashion.