Research on the Influencing Mechanism of the Effect of Brands’ Sustainable Behaviors on Consumer Attitudes: An Empirical Study on Clothing Brands

Abstract

Brands often link themselves with sustainable behavior in brand content marketing to obtain more consumer recognition. However, in fact, in the communication between brands and consumers, consumers cannot effectively respond to any sustainable behaviors of clothing brands other than the sustainable behavior of materials. This results in failure to stimulate the expression of deep culture, which then affects the long-term development of clothing brands. This study integrates material space benefit and spiritual space empathy as the intermediary role, aiming to explore the impact of brand sustainable behaviors on consumer brand attitude from the perspective of consumers. The data come from interviews with 12 experts, and 314 useable responses were collected (34.08% male and 65.92% female). Through in-depth interview, coding, and category analysis, we obtain dimensions of brand sustainable behaviors and a hypothetical model of relationship between brand behavior and consumer attitudes. We then use Amos software to quantify and demonstrate the mechanism of action between variables in the model. Research results show that: (1) Brand sustainable behaviors that have significant impact on brand attitude can be divided into three dimensions, which are product long-life design, cultural inheritance and reconstruction, and fashion digital empowerment. (2) Product long-life design has a significant direct effect on material space benefit; cultural inheritance and reconstruction significantly affect spiritual space empathy; fashion digital empowerment significantly affects material space benefit and spiritual space empathy. (3) Material space benefit and spiritual space empathy play a mediating role in the impact of brand sustainable behaviors on consumer attitudes, and the effect of spiritual space empathy on consumer brand attitudes has a high validity. The findings offer suggestions for sustainable strategies and content marketing of clothing brands, promotes effective communication between brands and consumers at the sustainable level, and help brands practice sustainability in normalization.

1. Introduction

As one of the traditional pillar industries in China, the garment industry has always been closely related to sustainable issues. This is not only because sustainable development has an important impact on the national economy [1], but also because it involves macro-propositions such as national well-being [2], human rights [3], equality [4], and next-generation development [5]. Compared to the past, sustainability has put forward higher and stricter industrial requirements for both sides, the client side and the production side. However, due to the limitations of traditional production and consumption methods, the garment industry has caused serious negative impacts on natural resources and the environment [6], which has attracted more and more consumers’ attention. Although environmental problems come from many factors, the main reason for the continued deterioration of the global environment is unsustainable mode of consumption and production [7]. Furthermore, many actions have pushed the garment industry to the brink of violating sustainability, for example, the spread of relevant propaganda such as Burberry’s proposal to let unwanted clothes be destroyed, the social impact of BBC documentaries such as Fashion’s Dirty Secrets [8], and the sweeping effect of violent consumption patterns such as fast fashion. To sum up, although sustainability has long been a matter of concern in the fashion industry, the effectiveness of sustainable brand behaviors is still questioned.

In fact, there is a dialectical relationship between production and consumption. Production is the starting point and consumption is the end point [9]. Without consumption, the product loses its value; however, when consumption goes into a strange state, the purpose of clothing is no longer purely for use, but will be wasted in a large amount, leading to an ecological crisis [10,11]. Although, at present, academia and industry are full of theories about slow fashion [12], ecological fashion [13], ethical fashion [14], green fashion [15], etc. Some scholars have also studied the influence of consumer knowledge [16], personal perception [17], lifestyle [18], and other factors on the cognition of and attitude to clothing sustainability. However, because the sustainability of clothing is too complex, it cannot be solved only by recycling physical objects. In addition, consumers are too diversified in moral issues [19] and other reasons, which lead to the attitude behavior gap when facing the sustainable behaviors of clothing brands. A China Sustainable Fashion Consumption Research Report (2020) shows that consumers do not really pay for sustainable products promoted by brands [20]. That is to say, when brand behaviors and consumers’ response are not equal, not only will the actual cost of brand investment increase, but so will the invisible costs of consumers such as ecological and environmental costs. Therefore, from an ecological and social perspective, the dialogue between consumers and producers on sustainable ways is crucial [21,22]. Based on this, we believe that all the practices of clothing brands should be regarded as production behaviors, and the perception dimension of consumers should be included in the category of consumption behaviors. This paper tries to build the relationship mechanism between sustainable behaviors of clothing brands and consumer attitudes, breaking away from the traditional research perspective based on the product circulation logic and concept introduction. The establishment of this relationship can help to effectively convey the concept of brand sustainability, and thus have a positive role in guiding sustainable consumption.

In order to solve this problem, this study analyzes brand behaviors that can effectively convey the concept of sustainability from the perspective of consumers and how these behaviors affect brand attitudes. The objectives of this study are as follows: (1) to investigate which sustainable behaviors of brands can make consumers feel profitable (whether material or spiritual), and then affect brand attitudes; (2) for clothing brands, to build a mechanism that brand sustainable behaviors affect brand attitude; (3) explore the intermediary role of material space benefit and spiritual space empathy in changing consumer brand attitude. The research results provide inspiration for the implementation of the brand green strategy and the cultivation of consumers’ sustainability concept.

1.1. Sustainable Behavior of Brands

Sustainable behavior aims to reflect the implementation or action to achieve sustainability or reduce unsustainable practices, including policy settings, management decisions, governance processes, and even new technologies [23]. Brand sustainability should not only meet the requirements of direct and indirect stakeholders, but also not harm the interests of future stakeholders [24]. Relevant scholars have conducted a series of studies on sustainable behaviors of brands, such as personalized service [25], green information sharing [26], employee education and rights [27], new ecological materials [28], circular fashion [29], etc. Relevant fashion enterprises have also successively carried out sustainable practices. For example, Hermès declared that it would provide maintenance services to prolong product lifecycles and proposed to reduce water and energy consumption [30]. ANTA has designed the “environmental protection” series of running shoes and produced a series of products with recyclable plastic and yarn. In addition, it has made outstanding contributions to fair production, employee rights, green supply, etc. [31]. HLA Group has explored process safety and digital production to meet the ecological requirements of society and consumers [32]. These behaviors mainly stay at the level of material circulation, lacking consideration from the perspective of consumers. Although Patagonia has included sustainable consumption in the sustainable system, it focuses mainly on the WORN WEAR program. In summary, there has been a lot of research on sustainable behaviors of clothing brands in the past, but there is little research considering the consumers, and the strategies are too macro and lack pertinence. For example, many studies have proposed that products should be environmentally friendly [33], brands should shape the green concept of consumers [34], and production should avoid excessive packaging and other strategies [35]. Based on this, we will focus on the perspective of consumers and then discuss the influence of brand sustainable behaviors other than sustainable materials on consumers, as well as the relationship between these behaviors and brand attitudes, so as to pave the way for future strategies.

1.2. Non-Constancy of Brand Attitude

Attitude is a reflector that produces emotional response, cognitive level and behavioral tendency to an idea or object’s behavior [36,37]. In the process of consumer decision making, attitude has a significant impact on consumers’ buying habits and behavioral intentions, and is a key factor in studying consumer behavior. At the same time, it also has a great influence on the final choice of products, services, and brands [38]. Although attitude is relatively persistent for consumers after it is formed, some studies show that attitude can also be changed through various marketing behaviors [39,40]. As a result, brands gradually pay attention to consumers’ emotion and value perception, and try to maintain a certain relationship with consumers by establishing psychological connection and identity. Especially in a consumer society, there is an absurd phenomenon of excessive consumption around goods, services, and material wealth, which continuously stimulates consumers’ non-constant symbolic demand. In this phenomenon, it seems that consumers have initiative apparently, but in essence, brands and consumers are involved in the whirlpool of sign production and consumption logic, then “we ourselves slowly become sentient beings” [41]. This is not conducive to a healthy and sustainable relationship between brands and consumers. In fact, the implementation of brand sustainability strategies can trigger consumers’ positive attitudes towards brand products, but the premise is that consumers need to have a sense of sustainability [42]. Therefore, in the face of the proposition of brand sustainable behavior, this thesis will avoid the physiological or psychological level, and instead try to pull the perspective back to consumers’ cognition of brand sustainable behavior, integrating psychological and practical needs in order to effectively avoid the phenomenon of inequality between attitude and behavior.

1.3. Consumption in Sustainability

The consumption problem is the core of the environmental crisis [43]. Especially in the “one-time society”, fast fashion has led to growing market supply, which means that clothing is rapidly out of date, and its intrinsic value is lost in the process of being eliminated [44]. This rapidly changing fashion environment will stimulate more impulsive purchases and ultimately lead to excessive waste of resources [45]. And this process has also accelerated consumers’ rational thinking about environmental problems [46]. Consumers’ awareness of environmental issues provides the possibility of effective communication of sustainable concepts at the consumer acceptance level. According to the United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection, consumption is a mobile process [47]. In this process, it is not only necessary to protect the health and safety of consumers, but also to cultivate the sustainable concept. However, in addition to policy formulation [48] and corporate social responsibility [49], there is still insufficient research on the consumer side [50]. The existing research from the perspective of consumers mainly uses the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the theory of rational behavior (TRB), and the theory of consumer perceived value (CPV) to analyze the influencing factors that promote or hinder behavior in clothing consumption [51]. The advantage of these studies is that they can effectively obtain the dimension of consumers’ concern, while the disadvantage is that they regard clothing consumption as a static result under various influences. At the same time, these studies do not explain the process of the formation of clothing consumption behaviors. It is also impossible to accurately explain consumers’ attitudes towards sustainable brand practices. Therefore, this research takes consumers as the main body and regards consumption as a dynamic practice made by consumers after continuous perception of brand behavior, rather than a short-term behavioral decision. Through in-depth interviews, we attempt to explore the psychological mechanism of consumers for the sustainable behaviors of clothing brands.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Procedure and Sample

The methods involved in this study include qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitative research mainly uses the grounded theory, which was developed by two sociologists, Barney Glaser and Anselsm Strauss. Its purpose is to conceptualize and extract a large amount of data collected in field investigation [52]. It is a fundamental research paradigm in the field of social sciences to obtain the basic information of research by exploring questions, understanding the phenomena of events, analyzing human behavior and views, and answering questions. The grounded theory can effectively obtain first-hand information from interviewees. All interviewees in this study are experts in the field of garments. They not only have rich industry experience, but also have conducted systematic research on consumer cognition. Therefore, taking them as interviewees can ensure the validity of information acquisition [53]. In the quantitative part, the structural equation model is used. First, the code obtained using the grounded theory is transformed into questions. Then, the quantitative data obtained from the questionnaire is used to verify the rationality of the model and the relationship between variables.

2.2. Coding Process and Categories

Principally, there are three parts to the coding. The first part, through literature discussion, collects the current research and practice on sustainable behaviors of apparel brands in academia and industry, with the purpose of forming the basic questions in the interview. The second part is expert interviews. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, “one-to-one” online in-depth interviews are used for the interviewed experts. In the actual interview process, we did not limit the number of interviewers, but found that when the interview reached the 12th respondent, there were many repetitions, representing the saturation of this survey. Therefore, it was finally confirmed that the number of interviews was 12. The personal information of interviewees is shown in

Table 1. Information list of interviewees.

Interview Date	Interviewee	Gender	Description of the Job
12 October 2021	WXL	Female	Design director—traditional costume design
28 October 2021	LCD	Male	Professor—traditional costume culture research
1 November 2021	QC	Male	Brand director—brand sustainability management
5 November 2021	LXZ	Female	Professor—research on ecological textile materials
10 November 2021	PSX	Male	Instructor—virtual fashion and digital design research
14 November 2021	CY	Female	Independent designer—children’s clothing design
11 November 2021	YWJ	Male	Marketing director—personal tailor and customer communication
16 December 2021	LSY	Female	Marketing director—clothing marketing and digital transformation
6 January 2022	WXC	Male	Brand founder—haute couture
20 January 2022	ZXP	Male	Agent—textile material trade
23 January 2022	ZK	Female	Instructor—eco-design and fashion marketing research
30 January 2022	MLL	Female	Professor—research on functional clothing

. In this interview, there were 7 senior managers of clothing brand enterprises and 5 researchers from universities, each of whom took 45–70 min. In this process, when we found special or valuable information, we promptly adjusted the interview questions and asked questions to capture new conceptual categories.

As the grounded theory emphasizes the natural emergence of research questions, we initially selected these questions according to the research objectives during the in-depth interview. At the same time, during the interview, we naturally asked additional questions based on the actual interaction with the interviewees to ensure that the information obtained from the interview is more abundant. The interview questions are as follows: (1) Under the guidance of the concept of sustainability, how can clothing brands carry out sustainable practices? (2) What sustainable behaviors have been well practiced at present? (3) What sustainable behaviors of clothing brands do you think can affect consumers’ brand attitudes? (4) What are the characteristics of the sustainable behavior of these clothing brands?

The third part is the arrangement and coding of interviewed content obtained in the second part. In order to avoid the influence of the researcher’s individual subjectivity, two people familiar with coding were invited to code at the same time. Therefore, the number of coders is 2. The number of the two persons with consistent codes is 114, and Tn is the number of codes obtained by the coder, T1 = 143, T2 = 158. Therefore, reliability calculated according to the formula is 0.864 (>0.70 [54]), indicating that the coding reliability is high. The main categories, core categories and key description obtained by coding are shown in

Table 2. Open coding for sustainable behaviors of clothing brands.

Main Category	Core Category	Key Description
Products Long-life Design	B1: Collocation of clothing	Easy matching; versatile; not outdated; convenient matching; basics; diverse collocation
	B2: Product usage frequency	Daily wear; suitable for many occasions; multiple functions; a garment can be worn in many ways; daily; various wearing forms; modular design; detachable design
	B3: Product durability	Wear resistance; washable; not easy to fade; long wearing time; it is not easy to oxidize and turn yellow; accessories quality; durable
	B4: Selection of ecological materials	Green; biodegradable; environment protection; low formaldehyde content; skin-friendly feeling; comfortable; safety; natural fabrics; moisture absorption and ventilation; accessories safety; low carbon production; healthy; antibacterial and bacteriostatic; alternative materials
	B5: Product recycling	Recyclable; renovation of old clothes; inventory disposal; second-hand recycling; donation; clothing rental; no-trace repair
Cultural Inheritance and Reconstruction	B6: Local cultural integration	Locality; characteristics; regional sense; melted the cultural barrier
	B7: Redesign of traditional cultural resources	Traditional elements; classical pattern; traditional color combination; redesign; intangible cultural heritage; inheritance; recreation; modern application; classical implication; characteristic costumes; cheongsam; hanfu elements; traditional jewelry; court style; cultural renaissance; traditional costume culture; derivation of traditional culture; creative transformation of national style and tide; the organic combination of traditional culture and aesthetic appreciation of the times, national characteristics, and international trends; transcendental symbol collage
	B8: Guarantee of traditional skills to garment technology	Craftsman spirit; intangible cultural heritage skills; manual; continuation of skills
	B9: Building the uniqueness of brand culture	Brand personality; brand characteristics; brand image; symbolization; profound connotation; personalization; minority
	B10: Traditional view of time and space	Chinese style sentiment; pursue classics; do not blindly follow the mainstream; sustainable consumption; eternal style; Chinese design; harmony between man and nature
Fashion Digital Empowerment	B11: Digital exhibition	Black technology; intelligent digital display; digital bionic show; digital twinning; 3D exhibition hall; virtual sample clothes
	B12: Virtual experience	Virtual bionics; virtual customization; virtual fitting
	B13: Online and offline linkage interaction	Online communication; shopping guide private domain traffic; E-commerce shopping guide; offline interaction
Material Space Benefit	P1: Product benefit (Short-term product earnings)	Improve the body microenvironment; save expenses on clothing; can be worn and used for a long time; it is convenient to use with other clothes
	P2: Symbolic benefit (Short-term product earnings)	Brand image is consistent with itself; brand characteristics meet the needs; brand characteristics satisfy preferences; build one’s own image
	P3: Ecological benefit (Long-term environmental benefit)	Reduce the burden on the earth; promote ecological sustainable development; energy saving and emission reduction; consider for future generations; conducive to the long-term development of mankind
Spiritual Space Empathy	P4: Cultural Empathy	Satisfy consumers’ pursuit of culture (traditional culture and characteristic culture); the cultural characteristics revealed by the brand meet the needs; contain cultural spirit; experience humanistic value
	P5: Value empathy	Eliminate the sense of distance and pull in the distance between clothing brands and consumers; unity with consumers’ values; emotional involvement; sense of relevance; sense of bringing in; value can be transmitted through behavior
Brand Attitude	A1: Brand attention	Always pay attention; consult brand-related information; continuous attention
	A2: Brand recommendation	Introduce to friends around you; recommend to people in need; share on the we media platform; publish the experience and evaluation of use
	A3: Brand consumption	Buy the brand frequently; consider purchasing the brand when necessary; integrate brand into life

.

CA = 2 × S / (T1 + T2)

(1)

R = (n × CA) / [1 + (n – 1) × CA]

(2)

CA indicates the mutual consistency of two coders; S is the consistency of classification between two coders; Tn is the number of codes obtained by coder (n = 1, 2, 3, …); R is coding reliability; and n is the number of coders.

2.3. Research Hypotheses and Model

In selective coding, following the guidance of the six main categories and combing the existing literature by coding researchers, story lines can be extracted from the original interview data, shown in Figure 1. The sustainable behaviors that typically affect consumer attitudes are long-term product design, cultural inheritance and reconstruction, and fashion digital empowerment. Material space benefit and spiritual space empathy play an information transformation role between brand behavior and consumer attitude. Attention, recommendation and consumption are all expressions of brand attitude. The overall story focuses on sustainable behaviors of clothing brands, covering product design, service experience, technical support, cultural heritage, fashion life, and other aspects.

Next, based on the research objective, story lines obtained from the coding, the view in stimulate response theory (SRT) that “Marketing and environmental stimuli enter the consumer’s consciousness, and a set of psychological processes combine with certain consumer characteristics to result in decision processes and purchase decisions.” [55], and brand sustainable behaviors can all be regarded as a form of marketing. So, this paper proposes the hypothesis and initial model (Figure 2), as follows:

Hypothesis 1 (H1).

Product long-life design has a significant impact on material space benefit;

Hypothesis 2 (H2).

Product long-life design has a significant impact on spiritual space empathy;

Hypothesis 3 (H3).

Cultural inheritance and reconstruction have a significant impact on material space benefit;

Hypothesis 4 (H4).

Cultural inheritance and reconstruction have a significant impact on spiritual space empathy;

Hypothesis 5 (H5).

Fashion digital empowerment has a significant impact on material space benefit;

Hypothesis 6 (H6).

Fashion digital empowerment has a significant impact on spiritual space empathy;

Hypothesis 7 (H7).

Material space benefit has a significant impact on brand attitude;

Hypothesis 8 (H8).

Spiritual space empathy has a significant impact on brand attitude.

3. Results

3.1. Sample and Data Collection

We conducted the survey using snowball sampling on social networks, and all subjects were from China. A total of 370 questionnaires were collected from March 15 to June 10, 2022. Of these, there were 314 valid questionnaires, with an effective recovery rate of 84.86%. The sample we obtained met the standard of statistical analysis. Moreover, the number of valid questionnaires was more than 10 times the number of items in the questionnaire, which was consistent with the requirement of sample number for structural equation model analysis. According to the data of the respondents, the proportion of the respondents that were male was 34.08%, and the proportion that were female was 65.92%. The age distribution of the respondents is normal, among which 28.98% were under 25 years old, 36.31% were 26–35 years old, 30.25% were 36–45 years old, and the rest were over 46 years old (4.46%). The respondents are generally well educated, with 12.89% having attended junior college, 48.44% having a bachelor’s degree, and 37.89% having a master’s degree or above. The occupations of the respondents include students (15.92%), civil servants (29.94%), enterprise managers (10.51%), ordinary employees (36.62%), and others (7.01%), which shows that the sample is extensive and well representative.

3.2. Reliability and Validity Test

In order to ensure the validity of the scale, it is necessary to test it. Validity analysis includes content validity and convergence validity. The scales in this paper are coded using the method of grounded theory, and the coding meets the saturation requirements, so the content validity is high. In addition, before measuring convergence validity through Amos, it is necessary to conduct a T-test to determine the overall convergence validity. First of all, the result of KMO test shows that KMO is 0.886, which is far greater than the standard of 0.50. Bartlett’s spherical test p value (sig) is 0.000, which is less than 0.05, indicating that there is a strong correlation between variables and thus suitable for factor analysis. From the factor load results, it can be seen that the classification of each item meets the theoretical expectation, as shown in

Table 3. Rotation factor component load matrix.

	1	2	3	4	5	6
B1 B2 B3 B4 B5	0.815 0.923 0.868 0.740 0.665
B6 B7 B8 B9		0.898 0.900 0.858 0.630
B10 B11 B12 B13			0.827 0.863 0.665 0.873
P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6				0.740 0.791 0.710 0.780 0.850 0.684
P7 P8 P3 P9 P10					0.885 0.922 0.856 0.919 0.828
A1 A2 A3 A4 A5						0.869 0.887 0.862 0.845 0.881

Note: The principle of factor extraction is that the eigenvalue is greater than 1, the maximum variance rotation method is adopted, and the maximum convergence iteration times are 25 by default.

. Meanwhile, in order to ensure the reliability and validity of model fitting and the testing of the hypotheses, it is necessary to use SPSS to test the reliability of the variables. The results show that Cronbach’s α coefficients of all potential variables are bigger than 0.8, meeting the requirement of greater than 0.7, as shown in

Table 4. Validity test of questionnaire items.

Variables and Measurement Questions	Cronbach’s α	Validity Test
B1: Clothing style is easy to match flexibly B2: Frequency of clothing use B3: Durability of garments B4: Garment is made of ecological materials B5: Brand provides recyclable ways (such as old clothes recycling, clothing rental, seamless repair, etc.)	0.825	p = 0.001 RMR = 0.021 GFI = 0.928 NFI = 0.934
	0.836	p = 0.001 RMR = 0.019 GFI = 0.949 NFI = 0.964
B6: It embodies local culture and is conducive to the transmission of local culture B7: Redesign of traditional cultural resources B8: Application of traditional techniques in clothing B9: Construct the cultural uniqueness of clothing brands (such as niche brands, outstanding brand image, etc.) B10: It reflects the traditional concept of time and space (such as the pursuit of classics; Chinese design; harmony between nature and man, etc.)
	0.907	p = 0.000 RMR = 0.000 GFI = 1.000 NFI = 1.000
B11: New media exhibition (such as digital display, digital bionic show, etc.)
B12: Digital experience (such as virtual customization, virtual fitting, etc.)
B13: Linkage Interaction between online and offline
	0.825	p = 0.001 RMR = 0.023 GFI = 0.901 NFI = 0.912
P1: Eco-clothing can improve my body microenvironment P2: “Versatile” or “multi-purpose” clothing can avoid unnecessary waste on clothing P3: The image presented by the brand is very close to my characteristics P4: Using a brand of sustainable practice can make a good impression on people P5: Brand sustainable practice is conducive to promoting ecological sustainable development P6: Brand sustainable practice is conducive to the long-term development of mankind
P7: The cultural characteristics revealed by the brand reflect the humanistic value P8: The cultural connotation conveyed by the brand meets my needs for traditional and characteristic culture P9: Enables me to be a part of the protection and dissemination of traditional culture P10: The sustainable practice of brand can express my ecological view P11: Sustainable practice of brand, unified with my values	0.822	p = 0.003 RMR = 0.024 GFI = 0.902 NFI = 0.909
A1: I will continue to pay attention to such brands A2: I will be closer to such brands A3: I will recommend this kind of brand to others A4: I will be willing to pay a premium for such brands A5: This kind of brand concept will be integrated into my life	0.937	p = 0.002 RMR = 0.005 GFI = 0.996 NFI = 0.999

. The CITC value of each measurement item is above 0.5, which meets the requirement of CITC > 0.3, and the overall Cronbach’s α coefficient of each potential variable does not improve after deleting each item. Thus, the scale has reasonable structure and high reliability.

At the same time, the cross load of each item is low, and the factor load of each observed variable is greater than 0.5, indicating that the scale has good convergence validity as a whole. In addition, the validity test of each measurement item of potential variables accords with p < 0.05, RMR < 0.05, GFI > 0.90, and NFI > 0.90, which also shows that the convergence validity of each measurement scale is good (Table 4). In conclusion, the data analysis shows that the scale is a reliable and effective measurement tool.

3.3. Structural Equation Modeling Analysis

The study used Amos 23.0 to verify the proposed assumptions, and obtained the overall fitness index of the model (

Table 5. Overall fitness index of the models.

Fitting Index	Model I Results	Model II Results
χ2/df	1.527	1.478
RMSEA	0.037	0.036
RMR	0.025	0.014
GFI	0.919	0.924
AGFI	0.908	0.912
CFI	0.955	0.957
NFI	0.921	0.924
TLI	0.940	0.942

), revised model (Figure 3), and results of the hypothesis test (

Table 6. Results of the hypothesis test.

Hypothesis Path	Standardized Estimate β	Standardized Error	Critical Ratio	p-Value	Hypothesis Results	Results
H1: Products Long-life Design→Material Space Benefit	0.448	0.067	4.060	***	Support	Positive influence
H4: Cultural Inheritance and Reconstruction→Material Space Benefit	0.505	0.086	4.360	***	Support	Positive influence
H5: Fashion Digital Empowerment→Material Space Benefit	0.517	0.048	5.787	***	Support	Positive influence
H6: Fashion Digital Empowerment→Spiritual Space Empathy	0.404	0.051	5.460	***	Support	Positive influence
H7: Material Space Benefit→Brand Attitude	0.215	0.068	3.615	***	Support	Positive influence
H8: Spiritual Space Empathy→Brand Attitude	0.636	0.073	6.094	***	Support	Positive influence

*** p < 0.001.

). At the same time, it is necessary to ensure that the path coefficient between two variables can pass the significance test, so as to show that the two variables are related. Otherwise, the two variables are not related. Model I in Table 5 is an initial model that covers eight hypotheses, and Model II is a modified model after deleting hypothesis H2 (β = 0.052, p = 0.107, the hypothesis is not supported) and hypothesis H3 (β = 0.040, p = 0. 402, the hypothesis is not supported).

To determine the best-fitting model from Model I and Model II, it is necessary to compare the fitting indices of the two models. The fitness index values of the two models are summarized in Table 5. Referring to fitness index (χ²/df < 3, RMSEA < 0.05, RMR < 0.05, GFI > 0.9, AGFI > 0.9, CFI > 0.9, NFI > 0.9, and TLI > 0.9) [56], the fit of both models is acceptable, but the fit of Model II is better than that of Model I. The comparison results show that: 1) The relevant fitting parameters in Model I and Model II are all within the acceptable range, and the difference is not big, which shows that the research model has considerable stability. 2) Compared to Model I, Model II has no significant changes in each fitting index. Since the insignificant paths H2 and H3 are deleted from Model II, it is found that Model II is slightly better than Model I from data comparison.

The standardized path coefficient of Model II is shown in Figure 3 and the results of the hypothesis test are shown in Table 6, showing that all sustainable behaviors in Model II are positively correlated with material space benefit and spiritual space empathy when individual differences of samples are ignored. H1 (β = 0.448, p < 0.001), H4 (β = 0.505, p < 0.001), H5 (β = 0.517, p < 0.001), and H6 (β = 0.404, p < 0.001) are all supported. At the same time, there is a significant positive correlation between material space benefit and consumers’ brand attitude (β = 0.215, p < 0.001), that is, the more material space benefit consumers perceive in behavior communication, the better their brand attitude and vice versa. The perceived empathy of mental space also has a significant positive correlation with brand attitude (β = 0.636, p < 0.001), that is, the higher the empathy of mental space, the better the brand attitude and vice versa. And the results of the standardized weight path show that the effect of perceived spiritual space empathy on brand attitude is significantly higher than that of material space benefit.

4. Discussion

4.1. Theoretical Significance

Based on the interview code and questionnaire, this study obtained the relationship model between brand sustainable behavior and brand attitude from the perspective of consumers, revealed the internal interaction mechanism, and confirmed that material space benefit and spiritual space empathy are the basis for connecting sustainable behavior and brand attitude. Eight assumptions were proposed; six of them were supported. H1 is supported, while H2 is not, which means that product long-term design can be recognized by consumers in material level, but not in spiritual level. H3 is not supported, but H4 is supported, which shows that cultural inheritance and reconstruction are recognized by consumers at the spiritual level, but not at the material level. H5 and H6 are supported, which shows that the fashion digital empowerment enables consumers to feel benefit in both material and spiritual aspects. H7 and H8 are supported, which shows that in the model sorted out by the grounded theory, both material benefit and spiritual empathy can positively affect consumers’ brand attitude and play an intermediary role in the model. Compared with material benefit, spiritual empathy can better guide consumers’ positive brand attitude.

According to the above findings, this research can make some contributions at the theoretical level. First, although the benefit of material and spiritual aspects have been considered important factors that affect brand attitude [57] and establishing customer relationship [58] in previous studies, this study shifts the perspective from concrete objects to the way of concept transmission and reversed it at the ontological level. And from the initial concepts of Chinese thinking, time–space concept, ecology, and so on obtained from the interview code, it can be seen that the foothold of communication between brands and consumers has broken through the traditional physical space and expanded to a three-dimensional space communication involving care and emotion. Second, many brands hope to gain consumer empathy and show corporate social responsibility by communicating sustainable attitudes, so as to gain more recognition and potential benefit. However, in past research, it was found that consumers were not really included in the team of sustainable practice participation and only stayed in the position of symbolic feedback, which led to a gap between sustainable brand behavior and consumer practice. Therefore, facing the phenomenon that the brand sustainable behavior cannot get a strong response from consumers, this study attempts to discuss which sustainable behaviors of brands can be recognized and resonated from the perspective of consumers, and obtain the internal mechanism that resonates, and then constructs and demonstrates the mechanism of action between variables. Theoretically, this research is very important because it clarifies which sustainable behaviors of brands are the pain points for consumers to pay. Third, research results show that the influence of spiritual space empathy on consumer brand attitude is significantly higher than that of material space benefit, which further demonstrates the importance of spiritual products. Moreover, cultural inheritance and reconstruction have a significant impact on spiritual space empathy, which means that culture can promote brands to become more advantageous and competitive than other factors. At present, fashion aesthetics have evolved into a way of capital operation and appreciation. Although many national brands representing traditional culture have emerged, they only use cultural symbols as superficial expressions, lacking the symbolic recognition of traditional cultural resources, which has led to the misinterpretation of the value position of traditional culture [59]. Therefore, clothing brands should take the localization cultural thinking as the leading strategy, leading the consumption, rather than relying solely on products to attract consumers. At the same time, fashion digital empowerment has a significant impact on spiritual space empathy, which means that digitalization should not only focus on the technical level, but also on the communication between digital space and spiritual space. Finally, product long-term design and fashion digital empowerment have a significant impact on physical space benefit. The long-term design of products not only includes the practicality, frequency of use, continuity of value, and recyclability of fabrics, but also involves the micro space ecological relationship with the human body. This means that the sustainable development of clothing brands can integrate the relationship between products and time, and establish an emotional long-term effect based on the long-term effect of goods. Fashion digital empowerment affects physical space benefit. On one hand, it shows that the cloud consumption mode is very popular. On the other hand, fashion digital empowerment helps to improve the internal working efficiency of enterprises, reduce idle waste, and save operating costs. It is an important means of long-term energy saving and green development of enterprises.

4.2. Practical Significance

These findings provide reference strategies for effective communication between brands and consumers. The real brand dialogue between them should have the characteristics of repeated communication, dynamic innovation and keeping pace with the times. The research results can provide reference brand development operation strategies and sustainable development ideas for R&D (research and development), digital operation and marketing management. From the perspective of product design and development, brands can present the product ecological chain, the dynamic relationship between human body and environmental development through design, so as to establish a deeper and more stable connection with consumers. From the perspective of culture, brands use clear and recognizable cultural roles to endow products with new connotations, so as to guide insightful and stand-oriented consumption, and finally achieve win–win results in cultural inheritance and brand development. From the perspective of digital communication, brands can break through the traditional space dimension through digital technology, guide consumers to experience sustainable creation practice, and evaluate the care pattern presented by brands. Brands can also integrate AI, 3D, VR, or big data to provide consumers with a more realistic immersive digital shopping experience, such as improving the fabric texture, dress experience, and space comfort in the digital space. In addition, this research also provides governments, industries, and organizations with the focus of sustainable development between production and consumption, which is conducive to popularizing sustainable practices and concepts, and helping the global sustainable development and the community of shared future of mankind.

4.3. Limitations and Future of Research

This study also has some limitations. First of all, this research discusses the sustainable behavior and communication effectiveness of clothing brands from the perspective of consumers, but consumers’ perception of brand behaviors always changes with social progress, cultural concepts and other factors. However, this study only investigated the current group sample, and subsequent research can continuously explore more dimensions of brand sustainable behavior in the future social environment. Second, due to the limitation of practice and resources, we only collected questionnaires from the Chinese mainland. However, due to cultural differences among people in different regions, they have different views on sustainability. In the future, research areas can be expanded, or comparative studies can be conducted in different countries and cultures. Finally, the relationship between material space benefit, spiritual space empathy, and consumers’ cognition of sustainable behavior needs to be studied further and in more detail, for example, how consumers perceive sustainable behavior, and specific reactions of consumers to subdimensions of product long-term design, cultural inheritance and reconstruction, and fashion digital empowerment. These studies will be of great significance in promoting the communication between brands and consumers.

5. Conclusions

In conclusion, this study reconfirmed three dimensions of brand sustainable behaviors from the perspective of consumers, explored the structural relationship in the process of communication between brands and consumers, and identified three key points of brand in sustainable practice, namely, product long-term design, cultural inheritance and reconstruction, and fashion digital empowerment. In the research, the long-term product design has broken through the cognitive level of objects. It also points out that brands need to integrate the evolution of material system, human body, and environment. Cultural inheritance and reconstruction break through the cognitive level of symbolic meaning. The importance of Chinese cultural thinking function is proposed. Fashion digital empowerment breaks through the cognitive level of technology. It proposes that brands should build digital space and spiritual space. In addition, this study also shows that sustainable behaviors of clothing brands should not only start from the concept and product, but also regard sustainable production and consumption as a whole behavior from the perspective of consumers, emphasizing that brands must establish a positive and close relationship with consumers beyond the physical mentality and symbolic mentality. At the same time, it is necessary to change the immediate thinking of sustainable consumption, because the previous consumption experience determines the next cycle—and even the cycle after that—of production and consumption. Therefore, brands should promptly understand the public’s perception of brand sustainable behaviors, improve the effectiveness of information transmission between both sides, promote consumers’ recognition of brand behavior, and then achieve value equivalence between production and consumption.