Fashion Design and Sustainability

In this chapter, I approach sustainability in relation to fashion’s meaning, processes, relationships and its matter. This involves the creation, extension or loss of value in a multitude of resources. The social resources involved in one of the world’s major industries, and possibly the most personal whilst ubiquitous methods of identity forming, is also the resource that affects all others: nature and our collective futures. To contextualise fashion design and sustainability in our times it is important to reference some of its historical, traditional, and future contexts in business and educational settings. Through my work as a designer and researcher, I have established the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, the first research centre in fashion and sustainability, at the University of the Arts, London, where I along with a team of researchers and students develop and apply design methods for relationship forming, product forming and societal prosperity. I share some of these methods here to offer an overview of my own work practices for consideration by others who make design decisions, whether through sketching, analyzing, selecting, product developing or through other facets of fashion’s discourse. As a long practiced designer and researcher, working at various scales and market levels, I bring to this chapter a discussion that starts within a practice of fashion design, to look at the role of designer in fashion’s contribution as a vital reference point in our individual identities and cultures in our shared habitat in nature.

About the book:
Sustainability is an issue that increasingly concerns all those involved in the apparel industry, including textile manufacturers, apparel designers, retailers and consumers. This important book covers recent advances and novel technologies in the key areas of production, processing and recycling of apparel.

Part One addresses sustainable finishing and dyeing processes for textiles. The first two chapters concentrate on the environmental impact of fabric finishing, including water consumption, emissions and waste management. Further chapters focus on plasma and enzymatic treatments for sustainable textile processing, and the potential for improving the sustainability of dyeing technologies. Part Two covers issues of design, retail and recycling, and includes discussions of public attitudes towards sustainability in fashion, methods of measuring apparel sustainability and social trends in the re-use of apparel.