No Wash Sweatshirt

The No Wash sweatshirt was an outcome from the AHRC funded project, 5Ways, which aimed to explore the relationship between fashion/textile design and design for sustainability concepts. Recognizing the lack of practice-based research in this area, and the focus on materials and ethics where activity is found. Katharine Hamnett's organic cotton campaign, Pesticide Action Network (PAN UK), Labour Behind The Label and the Fashioning An Ethical Industry project, for example. This research set out to apply more conceptual ecodesign principles found in other design disciplines to fashion and textiles.

The project produced stimulating and revealing ideas and product concepts for sustainable fashion/textile design, five of which were developed into garments. This project formed the basis of the TED eco design strategies.

As the most significant environmental impacts associated with the clothes we wear arise from the use stage of the lifecycle - between 65-82% depending on the garment type and fibre (Fletcher), the No Wash sweatshirt has had a particular resonance in the ecodesign world. It has been recognised as being a ground-breaking and unique ecodesigned garment concept which has been featured in the following publications:

·The Designer's Atlas of Sustainability, Ann Thorpe, Island Press, 2007
·The Fashion Paradox, Sandy Black, Black Dog Publishing 2008
·Eco Chic, Matilda Lee, Gaia Press 2008
·To Die For, Lucy Siegle, Fourth Estate 2008

The project has also informed many of the chapters in Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys, by 5Ways co-author Kate Fletcher (Earthscan, 2007).

Rebecca can be described as a practice-based textile design researcher in that her research integrates designing both as a mode of investigation and communication of research outcomes. This practice component encompasses a wide range of design related activities. For example, she produces hand and digitally printed textiles for her own label, undertakes public art projects and commissions, and is an educator, facilitator and curator.

• http://www.tedresearch.net
• http://www.beckyearley.com
• http://www.everandagain.info
• http://www.tfrg.org.uk