Tag Archives: DESIGN

Centre for Sustainable Fashion Competition: Fashioning the Future

Image via Centre for Sustainable Fashion, London College of Fashion

“Fashioning the Future brings together a global community of creative thinkers and doers, designers, innovators and entrepreneurs ready to offer the fashion industry opportunities for the future.

Founded in 2008, Fashioning the Future has been developed to include a wider range of disciplines, now with seven separate awards, celebrating and promoting a generation of emerging talent for the fashion industry of the future.

The possibilities for our future lie in the ingenuity of our creative minds. The competition is the leading international platform for celebrating innovation in sustainable fashion design, development and communication and we hope students and recent graduates from across the global fashion industry are inspired and excited to contribute through their work.

The underlying issue of consumption, the theme for the 2008 awards, will continue to be a crucial issue to fashion and its sustainability. Aligned to this, the theme for 2009 is Water, and there is a specific cross-discipline award focusing on this.”

Closing date 7 October 2009 at 1600hrs GMT.

Source: Centre for Sustainable Fashion, London College of Fashion

Valentino, Anna Wintour and Coco Chanel, before Chanel

If you are interested in the inner workings of the world of fashion, these movies will introduce you to some influential players: Valentino, Anna Wintour and Coco Chanel, before Chanel. These films will no doubt offer insight into the way in which certain design decisions, made by only a few influential individuals, have impacted the entire industry.

What are the negative/positive consequences of such influential decisions?

Here are the trailers:

FEI: Call for Academic/Research Papers and Student Projects

Fashioning an Ethical Industry International Conference: Fast Forward will take place on the 2nd and 3rd March 2010. It will bring together educators, industry experts, academics and selected students to explore how fashion can be taught to inspire responsibility for the rights of the workers making our clothes.

Alongside our set programme of speakers with expertise in the industry, we will provide the opportunity for the presentation of academic research papers and for students to present their project or dissertation work at the conference.

Academic/Research Papers Papers are welcomed that address the following or related themes:

Social responsibility in the garment industry (with an emphasis on garment workers’ rights)
Teaching ethics within fashion education
Approaches to education for sustainable development relevant to fashion education

Students are invited to apply for the opportunity to showcase their project, design or dissertation work which addresses social responsibility in the garment industry. If you are a tutor please encourage your students to make a submission.

Academics and students interested in participating in this event should submit an abstract by 30th October 2009 of 500‐700 words to liz _at_ fashioninganethicalindustry.org (replace _at_ with@). For more information on submitting papers please see the attached PDF.

Source: FEI

Fairtrade Urban Shoes: Canadian Newcomer Oliberté and Veteran Veja

Thanks to Ethical Style for letting us know about Canadian designer Tal Dehtiar’s new shoe line, Oliberté. Oliberté claims to be the first footwear company to make urban shoes exclusively in Africa – based on Fairtrade principles. The shoes are made from locally sourced materials (leather and rubber) in West Africa (starting in January). Speaking on the issue of poverty in the continent, Dehtiar argues that “the only real way to alleviate poverty on this beautiful continent is to build a middle class that includes fair paying jobs.”

It will be interesting to see how this line develops. As of yet, there are no real details on the Fairtrade and/or environmental nature of its supply chain (i.e. wages or factory conditions- tanning leather is often associated with pretty nasty chemicals, as well as the harsh glues that may be used in assembly, etc.), as the company is not yet certified Fairtrade. I expect that more information on production will be made available on the website soon: Treehugger has reported that “[t]he company is working in partnership with factories to improve their environmental footprint. As they say: ‘we still have a long way to go, but we will continue to do all we can improve our materials, our production and our shoes.’ Oliberte will be supporting local training in the communities where they work.” Treehugger also reports that Oliberté is “consulting with the tanneries to meet environmental standards.” Thus, stay tuned for updates from this Canadian company.

One urban footwear company that has seemingly managed to maintain it’s foothold in Fairtrade manufacturing is Veja.

Veja Volley

If you aren’t already familiar with Veja, be sure to check them out straight away. Asking the question “Is another world possible?” Veja uses and supports wild latex production in the Amazonia to fight against deforestation:

Veja soles are made of natural latex coming straight from the Amazon Forest in the Chico Mendes reserve. The Amazon is the only place on earth where wild rubber trees are to be found […] Their activity, which does not require putting down any tree, is a great way to preserve the world’s largest forest. Natural rubber is renewable and biodegradable, as opposed to synthetic rubber or plastic, which is produced by using fossil and non-renewable materials.

Veja also uses organic cotton, supports family agriculture and local cooperatives and uses ecological leather rather than chrome tanned leather (Veja has defined ecological leather as “chrome-free leather tanned with organic compounds only”). For more up-to date information on the happenings over at Veja, be sure to follow their blog.

Sidebar: Veja has just launched its first line of ethical bags, four years after introducing its trainers.

Veja Projet Numero Deux2

About these bags: organic cotton and leather tanned without chromium.

Source: Ethical Style, Treehugger, Oliberté, The Globe and Mail, PR Web and Veja

Images courtesy of: Oliberté and Veja

Digital Patterns: Downloading the Future of Design

This is a design concept that attempts to decrease waste on the manufacturing and transportation end of the lifecycle of a garment and eliminate mass production. In the process, SANS has encouraged a new way for consumers to relate to their clothing to develop a relationship with the garment itself. Means of production and transportation, as well as material selection, are in the hands of the consumer. The result: “extravagant” and “complex” clothing does not need to come at such a high price (social, environmental, or $$$).

Source: Core77 and SANS

The Designers Accord Global Summit on Design Education & Sustainability

NOTE: Although this event is invite only, information gathered at the summit will be compiled into a toolkit that will be made available through the Designers Accord, for free.

Title: The Designers Accord Global Summit on Design Education & Sustainability
Location: San Francisco
Link out: Click here
Description:

“Overview
In San Francisco, on October 23 and 24, 2009, the Designers Accord will convene 100 individuals (an invited group of undergrad and graduate design education faculty and administrators, thought-leaders, experts, and select student ambassadors) for two days of highly participatory discussion, planning, and action around the topic of sustainability and design education.

The Summit is structured so that we address the critical topics in design education and sustainability, and create a toolkit for people to use right away. The formula:

100 educators, administrators, and thought-leaders
48 hours in San Francisco
6 inspirational – 30 minute speeches
8 breakout worksessions of highly participatory small group brainstorming
1 open exhibition of work, projects, programs
Time to talk, think, learn, problem-solve, and imagine possibilities

Goal
We will draw on the experience and knowledge of our global community to tackle the critical issue of sustainability, consider how best to prepare our educational community to make real change, and imagine what’s next in design education.

Our goal is to have a lively and rich discussion during the summit, and then publish the best practices and recommendations for integrating sustainability into design and media programs to the public.”

Start Date: 2009-10-23
End Date: 2009-10-24

Source: The Designers Accord

new teaching resources just in time for the fall semester

If you are thinking about incorporating responsible design into your curricula this upcoming fall semester here are a few resources to get you started.

Nathan Shedroff, author of the book, Design is the Problem: has recently published free curricula under Creative Commons license.

This is a series of free syllabi and teaching materials to help instructors teach students key topics for the future. These courses are studio courses, meant to teach students by making and doing, instead of merely reading and regurgitating. These syllabi are ready-to-use but can easily be customized for different situations. They are primarily created for design and business programs at the graduate and undergraduate level but can be adopted for teaching to most any audience at most any level. (Shedroff, Thoughts)

Design is the Problem: A course in sustainable design 1.0

Experience Studio: Exploring the full dimensions of experience design 1.0

Market Insight Studio: Research for more meaningful offerings 1.0

The curriculum contains syllabi and presentations and even comes complete with evaluation criteria for the Final Project Presentation (coming soon). Each studio course is easily downloadable, as Shedroff has, not surprisingly, made access to the information extremely user-friendly. Shedroff has truly delivered a fantastic resource in these studio courses.

Another must have for fashion design educators is Teaching Sustainable Fashion: An Educators Handbook, so make sure to add these articles to your course syllabus. We have highlighted the importance of this resource before, but with the new fall semester approaching, it is definitely worth another look. Chapters are broken up into different categories: Design, Business, Marketing, Interactive Activities, Cross-Curricular, and Pedagogy and Institutional Approaches.

You can download the entire handbook or each chapter separately on the Fashioning an Ethical Industry website, here.

Here is a look at the article titles and authors in the chapter on design:

On teaching empathy, Sue Thomas

Slow fashion, Kate Fletcher

Designing slow fashion, Kate Fletcher

The elephant in the room: Contextualising the ethical within fashion excellence, Mo Tomaney

Collaborating with fair trade producers: Design and trends, Tony Hicks

Customized denim project with further education students studying BTEC National Diploma Art & Design (Fashion & Clothing), Maria Skoyles

Clothing care calculator: An interactive tool to evaluate environmental impact, Katie Dombek-Keith and Suzanne Loker

Style showdown , Sara B. Marcketti

Introducing the cotton supply chain and sustainability, Südwind Agentur

Ideas for design briefs, Fashioning an Ethical Industry and Abbie Price

Design Revolution

Last, but not least, we posted earlier re: Emily Pilloton’s new book, Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People, and are happy report that it is now available for purchase. Here is what Valerie Casey, Global Practice Head, IDEO; founder, The Designers Accord, had to say about Pilloton, and the book:

“Pilloton is a force of nature and Design Revolution is the perfect
storm of inspiration, optimism, and ingenuity. This book should be
on every designer’s shelf — no, in his or her hands.”

Just in time for the fall semester!

Source: Core77, Nathan Shedroff, FEI, and Project H

Social Alterations is now on Ning!

You can use this space to share and upload curricula ideas, lesson plans, visual aids, research and projects, or to just discuss the current happenings in the industry with respect to social issues and environmental concerns, as well as the latest trends in socially responsible design.

“See” you in the Forum! Oh…and don’t forget to pick up your Social Alterations Badge!

Visit Social Alterations

FIBERcast 3: Environmental Sustainability in the Apparel Industry

fiberlogo

The 3^rd installment of FIBERcast went live on July 31, 2009. This episodes theme? Environmental Sustainability in the Apparel Industry. Thought I might offer some notes that stood out from the 1st half of the broadcast.

Moderator: Marsha Dickson, Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies, University of Delaware

Guest Speakers: Will Phillips, Manager, Environmental Strategy, Under Armour Inc., Rick Horwitch, Vice President, Solutions Business Development and Marketing, for Bureau Veritas – Consumer Products Services, Dr. Suzanne Loker, Professor, Cornell University, Huantian Cao, Associate Professor, University of Delaware

The talk started off with Professor Huantian Cao breaking down the UDSAI Policy Guide (which mainly focuses on the environment).

Dr. Suzanne Loker defined sustainability broadly as “economic development, the environment, the impacts of people in their consumption choices, and technological advancement.” This signifies “improving, building upon and overall achieving responsible practices that are mentioned over the long term. Sustainability is at the foundation of social and environmental responsibility, yet it may not be achievable. Rather, we should strive for improvement” (Loker).

Loker cites a quote taken from Yvon Chouinard, the Founder and Chairman of Patagonia, as stated in the Preface of the book Sustainable Fashion: Why Now?

“To be sustainable means that you would take-out of a system the same amount of energy as put in, with no pollution or waste. A sustainable process is one you can do forever without exhausting resources or fouling the environment […] There has never yet been, nor is there now a sustainable business or sustainable fashion on this planet, and no one should ever pretend in setting out for a place that you’ve actually gotten there.”

Sustainability is a continuous goal, one that can never be achieved. Rather, it is something to strive towards. In this way, it needs to be larger than individual businesses.

Huantian Cao covered 3 equally important pillars of sustainability:

Economic
Environmental
Social

Speaking in detail on what companies can do today to get started on their environmental sustainability in terms of scope of business activities, both Loker and Rick Horwitch, Vice President, Solutions Business Development and Marketing, for Bureau Veritas – Consumer Products Services stressed their belief that every member of the supply chain has a contributing role in decreasing the environmental impact through input and matching production to consumption.

To get started immediately, Horwitch suggests companies tackle the issues through design, production, supply chain, and corporate perspective:

Design perspective

AFA: Restrictive Substance List (RSL) (all globally encompassing it covers the apparel and textile and footwear industry) get rid of the bad substances in your products.
Packaging: reduce ratios. Look for biodegradable content, energy efficient.

Production

Look at energy efficiency. Horwitch recommends companies check out The Footprint Chronicles over on the Patagonia site.

Supply chain

Look at transportation
Look at social compliance. Social compliance is critical. Ethical sourcing is critical to a sustainable supply chain.

Corporate perspective

Be a good citizen.
Communicate that the issues are important to you.
Do large scale changes, but do not ignore the small changes, such as changing the light bulbs.

What is the business case to engage in this shift?

Horwitch maintains that while the front end may be more expensive, “sustainability is about the triple bottom line and a for profit solution. Sustainable process is an efficient process.”

Triple bottom line? Remember those three pillars Huantian Cao mentioned:

Economic
Environmental
Social

For more information, you can listen in on this FIBERcast, as well as previous broadcasts, here.

Resources to walk away with:

University of Delaware’s Sustainable Apparel Initiative

Sustainable Fashion: Why Now?

Restricted Substance List (RSL)

Patagonia: The Footprint Chronicles

FIBERcast

Source: FIBERcast

Nike: Considered Design Ethos, Steve Nash and the “Sixty Million Dollar Man”

Nike's Considered Design shoebox

Nike has adopted an interesting approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR). As previously mentioned, the company has seemingly managed to connect its sustainability platform to its innovation platform. Trash Talk is one example, the packaging the shoe comes in is another:

The shoe will also be packaged in a new Considered Design shoebox. Like Nike’s first recycled content box in 1995, this new box is still made from 100 percent recycled fiber, but now features a new design which reduces the fiber content by approximately 30 percent. (CSRwire)

"Considered is not Compromising. It's rethinking." (Nike)

According to the company, “Nike’s Considered ethos challenges designers to use environmentally-preferred materials, reduce waste, create sustainable manufacturing processes and use innovation to help reduce our overall environmental impact.”

You can learn more about Nike’s Considered Design Ethos by visiting their Considered Design Index.

In terms of lifecycle analysis, however, Nike has set some goals that I believe are worth considering:

footwear to be Considered by 2011
apparel to be Considered by 2015
equipment to be Considered by 2020

All this will be done through the company’s Considered Design Ethos:

less toxics
less waste
more environmentally-preferred materials
sustainable product innovation

Are you up for the challenge? I’m not convinced the marketing campaign (below) will help motivate you…but hey, why not.

Source: CSR Wire, Nike, Nike and more Nike