A Fashion Odyssey: progress in fashion and sustainability

There is great pressure on the phenomenon of fashion as we know it today, and the way in which the current clothing and textile industries function. Under the influence of the ever-increasing need for more sustainable fashion on the one hand, and technological development on the other, fashion is changing irrevocably. This process of change is still in the early stages, but it is certain that the technological manufacturing processes – working from a drawing to a pattern and stitching clothes together on a sewing machine – are going to change radically in the collaboration between sustainability and technology. Who knows, as consumers, we may soon be able to make a knitted or woven item of clothing roll out of a 3D printer. And the question is how long we will keep working with cotton and wool now that we can make new fabrics and materials,which are not damaging to the environment, out of grasses and organic waste.

This book focuses on various themes that play a role in the sustainability debate that is currently taking place. Can slow fashion really give new value to the concept of fashion? What possibilities do new technologies offer? What is the influence of activist citizen’s initiatives such as repairing and recycling? And finally, how do new values and new methods of production in fashion lead to new (more sustainable) business models?