FASHION DESIGN EDUCATION AND SUSTAINABILITY. A CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

Fashion is one of the most relevant phenomena to describe contemporary cultures and societies (Fioraai, 2006; Bertola, 2018). Despite this, fashion has always been a marginal topic within the design scientific debate. Fashion design education has been a small niche within the whole academic system. Nowadays, this exile, that could be considered both forced or voluntary, is ending. Fashion is strong of its recognized impact on global economies, society, culture, and is conscious of the need for it to engage, as for all other sectors, in guiding a coherent transition of the surrounding world towards a more sustainable paradigm. In view of this, this exploratory paper, developed within the scope of the author’s doctoral research, present an initial analysis of the current state of the art in practices across Europe, mapping existing and emerging practices within university level institution and industry, to identify approaches and practices that could be amplified, and implemented to contribute to a sustainable paradigm for fashion design education

Circular fashion: evolving practices in a changing industry

AbstractToday we are witnessing a change in the production paradigm of the fashion industry. The negative impacts of different processes along the supply chain are evident and consumers have begun to shift to brands seeking effective organizational strategies and supply chain-management models that consider the safeguarding of the planet’s resources and demonstrate respect for people. Impelled by these developments, fashion brands are moving from market-driven to purpose-driven strategies. The fashion industry is now recognizing the circular economy (CE) as the leading entrepreneurial model for addressing supply-chain issues related to sustainability. However, there are still gaps in the levels of environmental, economic, social, and cultural sustainability being achieved. Implementation of this model on a large scale is still in the early stages and recent experience indicates a need to rethink the current linear system to enable different actors along the fashion-supply chain to adapt. Further, the fashion system lacks a holistic vision that can support and guide this sustainable transformation toward CE. This article describes how several companies are currently implementing circularity and presents evidence that an emphasis on this concept is relevant for the global fashion industry. It aims to show how emergent design practices are supporting fashion companies to better focus their sustainability agendas, to approach them in a holistic manner, and to consider all business processes with the goal of implementing sustainable development strategies. Analyzing contemporary design-driven best practices, the article introduces a taxonomy highlighting effective ongoing strategies (mini-loops) leading to incremental changes toward CE. Furthermore, it synthesizes possible future trajectories that could lead the fashion system to finally close the loop of circularity

Biobased Innovation as a Fashion and Textile Design Must: A European Perspective

Fashion industry investments drive the choice for textile solutions characterized by radical experimentation and a firm commitment to sustainability. In the last five years, textile innovations have been strongly related to biobased textile solutions evolving to become effectively feasible and strategic. The produced qualitative knowledge implementations consider new production patterns, innovative technical and digital know-how, and new consumption scenarios. The directions the industry is tracing may provide new opportunities for future textile development in the circular biobased economy. This paper presents a map of current European practices. It discusses the possible passage through a holistic paradigm that goes beyond the boundaries of the old productive systems to accompany the sector towards a new sustainable and transversal state. It also presents three selected best practices that return the actual context in which the phenomenon occurs. A model is presented to demonstrate how these circular processes of biobased materials production enable more process innovations which are developed through implementing the process itself: companies’ search for rethinking and implementing the traditional practices or designing new ones (as determined by the doctoral research of one of the authors)

How Can Social-Cultural Values Nurture Sustainability in the Fashion Sector?

The paper illustrates how fostering socio-cultural sustainability for Fashion brands creates strategic actions that stimulate and develop the production and competencies of local systems. Such strategies in now enhancing "cultural authenticity" by engaging specific pieces of knowledge and communities that contribute to the brands' uniqueness triggering a sustainable innovation in the production sectors they represent