Be part of the {Shift}Title: THEKEY. T(W)O
Location: Germany
Link out: Click here
According to their website, THEKEY. T(W)O’s full program will not be up until Dec. 14th. We’ll be sure to keep you updated when the info is available-stay tuned!
Start Date: 2010-01-20
End Date: 2010-01-23
Source: THEKEY. T(W)O and Ecotextile News
This lesson introduces the following concepts: consumer choice, designer choice, the ‘Ecofashion Lexicon,’ greenwashing, unintelligent design, and cradle to cradle design theory. For more information on these issues, please visit the ‘Works Cited’ page at the end of the lesson.
* If you are planning to use this lesson, please let us know so that we may keep track of our progress.
Introduction
Both consumers and designers alike have been left to fend for themselves when it comes to understanding the social issues and environmental concerns increasingly associated with the fashion industry. Signals of deception, such as greenwashing, as well as unintelligent designs that have created products with hidden ingredients, known as products plus, have seemingly hijacked the potential for any real choice to exist at all.
The Uniform Project Trailer from The Uniform Project on Vimeo.
The Uniform Project is an “exercise in sustainable fashion,” where one woman has committed herself to wearing the same black dress for an entire year.
Already half way through, the project has raised $27, 525 for the Akanksha Foundation.
Follow Sheena through the dailies as she challenges traditional notions of uniformity, raising important questions surrounding necessity and sustainability. You can be a part of the project by donating $$ or by donating
Donate old accessories, contribute your own designs, or collaborate on an ensemble. Click here to learn more.
As followers of SA likely already know, this online lab was developed as a result of my research, ‘Social Alteration: Sustainable Design Solutions through Socially Responsible Design Education’ at Athabasca University. A few months in, SA has grown to include the work contributing writer and collaborator Nadira Lamrad, as well as contributing writer Katrine Karlsen, and has already created the SA Fibre Analysis as our first piece of free downloadable curricula.
I’m excited to report that Fashioning an Ethical Industry has added this work to the student project/dissertation section of their site! Thank you for your support!
Click here to check it out, as well as to learn more about these inspiring student initiatives:
22 magazine
Louise Boulter
University College for the Creative Arts (Epsom)
BA (hons) Fashion Promotion and Imaging
What is ethical wear?
Anita Costanzo
Universita IUAV di Venezia
Corso di laurea in Design della Moda
‘Six’
Danielle Fell
Nottingham Trent University
Fashion Marketing and Communications
Graduate
Can El Salvador develop and sustain homegrown design
Carolina Gomez
Chelsea College of Arts and Design
Textile Design
3rd Year
‘Make-Do-And-Mend’
Nathalie Gottschalk
Ma Ethical Fashion Graduate
Consumer Guidebook Nectar
Cathy Gray
University College of the Creative Arts
Work done in 3rd Year – now graduated
FILM CLIP and ‘Ethical Shopping Guide’
Kelly Levell
Arts Institute at Bournemouth
BA Fashion Studies Degree
Installation in response to exploitation of garment workers
Polly Pocock
North Devon School of Art
FdA Fine Art
‘Designing Happiness’
Anna Vening
Chelsea College of Art and Design
BA Textile Design
Title: BSR Conference 2009
Location: San Francisco, CA
Link out: Click here
The 2009 BSR Conference kicks off tonight in San Francisco with a Human Rights Networking Reception starting at 5:30pm. Of the many interesting panel sessions, including “Integrating Sustainability into Sourcing, Design, and Production of Products” with Amy Leonard and Erik Joule from Levi Strauss & Co’s, Hannah Jones will be discussing Nike’s Considered Design Ethos during the panel “Integrating Sustainability into Corporate Innovation” at 4:30 on Oct. 22nd.
We’ve mentioned Nike’s Considered Design Ethos before (see Nike Talks Trash and Nike: Considered Design Ethos, Steve Nash and the “Sixty Million Dollar Man”).
Check out this article on Greenbiz to learn more about Nike’s Considered Design initiative.
Description:
“In a world that’s been ‘reset’ by a trio of global crises—the sharp worldwide recession, accelerating climate change, and a collapse of trust in business—the implication and opportunities for business are enormous.
“Now more than ever, innovative sustainability strategies are needed to deliver business value today, and position companies to successfully meet the greater challenges ahead. The BSR Conference is an essential opportunity to learn how to leverage your resources, implement changes, and succeed in a world where business as usual is no longer viable.
“Don’t miss your chance to be part of one of the largest and most influential communities of corporate responsibility leaders, at what Forbes.com ranks among the top 12 influential executive gatherings for 2009. A new, restructured format with more—and more varied—session time than ever before means that you will be able to customize your agenda with the topics, level, and length of sessions that are right for you. Any way you design it, the BSR Conference will deliver a practical and interactive learning experience, unrivaled access to industry experts, and the knowledge you need to lead in a ‘reset world.’” (BSR)
Start Date: 2009-10-20
End Date: 2009-10-23
“A cautionary story of labor and greed, Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags follows the decline of the once-robust apparel manufacturing industry in the U.S., while chronicling the industry’s relationship with unions and government. From the “Garmento” to the seamstress, from the designer to the marketing maven, from the small businessman to the financier, Schmatta offers a firsthand account of how the industry helped generations of Americans march out of poverty and right into the golden age of the American middle class. But while Schmatta reminds us of the early days of the garment industry and its heyday, it also probes its troubling decline, which has occurred largely within the last 30 years. In 1965, 95% of American clothing was made in the U.S.A.; by 2009, only 5% is manufactured here.
Director Marc Levin focuses his lens on Manhattan’s Garment District, an eight-block area on Manhattan’s West Side which gave birth to the domestic industrial labor movement, and played a key role in major American political activities. From its immigrant origins in the 19th Century, the labor movement rose quickly against deplorable sweatshop conditions. In recent years, however, the realities of automation, deregulation, globalization and outsourcing – all part of the race to the bottom line – eventually eroded the industry’s unprecedented momentum (more)” (HBO Synopsis)
Click here to read the review by Women’s Wear Daily, “HBO Heads Inside the Garment Center” by Rosemary Feitelberg.
Premieres Oct. 19 th-click here for showtimes.
Social Alterations is happy to report that Tim Brown’s new book, “Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and inspires innovation” is now available.
Tim Brown is CEO at IDEO, and is responsible for promoting the participatory design theory “design thinking.” Design thinking requires the designer participate in the process, to move “beyond the latest high street products” (Brown, TED: Sep, 09) He believes that designers need to focus “less on object, and more on design thinking as an approach” (Brown, TED: Sep, 09). In this way, the human centred component of design thinking asks designers to consider the design brief outside of pure aesthetics, image and fashion (Brown, TED: Sep, 09).
IDEO has also just launched a new site called Living Climate Change to expand the conversation on climate change through design thinking:
“One of the most important ideas about design thinking is that it creates new ideas that provide new choices for business and society. As we move toward December and the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen I worry that we have far too few ideas to talk about. It is all too easy to argue over what we will have to give up in the search for significant reductions in carbon and yet there is very little discussion about what we might create as we try to resolve the most significant challenge humanity has yet faced.” (Tim Brown, Design Thinking)
Our Invitation To You from IDEO on Vimeo.
For a list of other books related to socially responsible design, be sure to check out our Reading Section.
October will have you wishing you could be in more than one city at the same time.
If you find yourself in Paris, Chicago, Providence, Portland, Hong Kong, London or Seattle this October, be sure to check out these amazing events. Click on the event you are interested in on the Events Calendar and we should link you straight into the events homepage.
Also, if you are near London in Oct. Nov. or Dec., be sure to stay tuned into the London College of Fashion, for Clash! Creative Collisions in Fashion and Science.
Last but not least, if you have an upcoming event you think are readers would be interested in, be sure to drop us a line.
Retailers have a responsibility to understand the social and environmental impacts of the products they sell. Unfortunately, “the cotton supply chain is fragmented, complex and not very transparent.” (CREM, 7) Although CREM’s new handbook, “Sustainable cotton on the shelves,” was developed with mainstream retailers to in mind, it can also be used as a tool for apparel / textile/ fashion (etc.) designers to turn to for help on getting more educated on the fibre.
Designers have a responsibility to understand the true social and environmental consequences of their designs. “While efforts are being made to have full traceability of conventional cotton, at present such a system does not exist (to date only certified cotton is fully traceable).” (7) The use of conventional cotton is an irresponsible design choice. While fully sustainable cotton is not an option, this handbook will guide you through the in’s and out’s of initiatives, certification, third-parties, retailers and the better cotton initiative. The guide also breaks down industry definitions and categories.
*If you are a design educator, the guide contains excellent visual aids. For example, “How Clean is my Cotton?” (pg.5) could be useful when explaining the social, environmental, and economic impact of cotton production to your design students.
*If you are a designer, please be sure to also read this report by Urs Heierli “Where Farmer and Fashion Designer Meet: Globalization with a Human Face in an Organic Cotton Value Chain.”
*If you are a design enthusiast, please, spread the word.
About the report:
“Using the perspective of new-comers in the world of sustainable cotton, the handbook attempts to explain complex issues in an accessible manner, answering the key questions that textile retail managers, buyers or marketers may face: What type of sustainable cotton is the most suitable for my business? Can I source it from my own supply chain, at what conditions? Is there a consumer demand for sustainable cotton? What are my options if I am a small or medium sized retailer?
Through concrete questions and straightforward answers, the handbook provides an overview of issues and trends in the production and marketing of sustainable cotton. The handbook ”Sustainable cotton on the shelves” is the outcome of a project run in the Netherlands by the retailers HEMA and de Bijenkorf, the Dutch association for large textile retailers (VGT), the NGOs Oxfam Novib and WWF, and the consultancy CREM.
Pascale Guillou, senior consultant at CREM, says “We are extremely pleased that the result of this two-year research and consultation process with numerous stakeholders can be widely shared with mainstream retailers. We hope that this handbook will help textile retailers making strategic decisions and operational choices at a time when they experience the will or the need to better perform on a triple bottom line”
Click here to download the handbook.
Source: EcoTextile News and CREM
These beautifully unique rugs were created and designed by artists Nate Siverstein and Andrea Paustenbaugh. Each Shoelace Rug is a one of a kind design. All have been created through the upcycling of 100% resused materials (laces), by a fourth generation family owned manufacturer local to the artists, in the USA. The designers view their designs as “multifunctional earth friendly sculptures,” and are passionate about creating responsible designs.
“The shoelace rug is a sculpture that evolves beneath your feet. Shape, size, and depth are determined by the user. Machine washable.”
Since they are machine washable, they can also be washed by hand (no dry-cleaning necessary).
Source: Core77 and Shoelace Rug