Title: Design research Conference Location: Spertus Institute, Chicago, IL. Link out: Click here Description: The Design Research Conference (DRC), hosted by the IIT Institute of Design, brings together a growing community of design professionals advancing the role of design research in innovation.
The conference strives to spread knowledge through the discussion of compelling experiences and case studies, innovative methods and approaches, and the future and sustainability of design research.
Enthusiastic speakers interested in sharing their knowledge take the stage, enchanting the audience with best practices of design research and enthralling stories. The audience, two-thirds professionals and a third students, leaves with key takeaways: new ideas for further discussion and methods to throw into their own toolkits.
In its eighth year, DRC (formally About, With and For) will be more participatory in nature. Workshops, student presentations, twenty-minute lightning round TED style talks, and other group activities and networking opportunities will fill the two days.
Source: Core77 and IIT Institute of Design Start Date: 2009-10-01 End Date: 2009-10-02
‘comingled collection’ bad for textile recycling through cross contamination
‘diversion’ schemes good: Morley gave a shout out to Vancouver’s own Mountain Equipment Co-Op for encouraging their customer to sell and trade their used MEC products with other customers online.
Casper Gray, Director of Wax, Sustainable design and research
Suggested possible causes for the death (end of life) of textiles:
Fashion
Boredom/change
Bad fit
Wear
Damage
Loss
Other Causes:
Off cuts and errors (during manufacturing)
fabric samples
According to Angell, Gray “implied that designers could have a stronger role in improving these aspects.”
Click here, for the full write up at Puff and Flock, a London based textile collective, that it’s a great resource for critical textile design thinking.
University of Delaware’s Sustainable Apparel Initiative offers ten policies for apparel brands and retailers to implement into their business practices. Click here to learn more about the policies and the initiative. Although all ten policies are crucial considerations for sustainable practices, “Policy 5: Consider and implement end-of-life strategies (recycle, renew, or reuse) when choosing materials, designing, and producing apparel” pays particular attention to design through suggested best practices in both material and design assembly considerations. In the context of socially responsible fashion design education, how can these policies be integrated into your fashion curriculum? Early next week, Social Alterations will be opening a members based discussion forum for fashion and apparel educators to ask questions and share ideas on how to best approach social and environmental concerns within the industry in their design classrooms. I hope you will join in on the conversation and share your ideas with this community.
Press Release: UD publishes sustainable apparel business guidelines
What does it mean for a clothing or footwear company to be environmentally sustainable? Browsing some brands’ Web sites, you might think a company can lessen its impact on the environment just by using organic cotton in some of its clothing. But it’s not that simple.
The University of Delaware’s Sustainable Apparel Initiative (UDSAI) is demystifying the process of becoming more environmentally sustainable for brands and retailers. Companies seeking this information are invited to read and utilize UDSAI’s recently produced policy guide, “Creating a More Environmentally Sustainable Apparel Business: Policies for Apparel Brands and Retailers.”
“Sustainability is the ‘buzz’ throughout all industries. The problem is there is no clear definition of what this means,” said Rick Horwitch of Bureau Veritas Consumer Products Services. Bureau Veritas is an international firm that helps clients comply with standards and regulations relating to quality, health and safety, environment and social responsibility.
“I applaud the University of Delaware for taking on this daunting task of trying to put some structure and context around this very important issue. UDSAI will help bring clarity and direction,” Horwitch said.
University of Delaware faculty and students collaborated with industry professionals involved with environmental sustainability to research best practices.
“The apparel industry is predicated on change and planned obsolescence, which often results in overconsumption and waste throughout the value chain,” said Huantian Cao, UD associate professor of fashion and apparel studies and co-director of UDSAI. “UDSAI attempts to provide some simple guidelines that, when followed, will result in a more sustainable company.”
The second annual Greener By Design 2009 “Greener Products for Leaner Times” conference was held yesterday and today in San Fransisco. William McDonough gave the keynote speech at the conference yesterday. This article, “Greener By Design: Nature’s Rights, Nutrients and Quality Design,” by Jonathan Bardelline sums it up.
Just added William McDonough’s TED talk on ‘cradle to cradle’ design theory to the videos section. You will also find Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things in the suggested reading section of the site.
“I think we have a design problem.” (William McDonough’s, TED)
Image Source: Fashioning an Ethical Industry (FEI)
7th July 2009
Teaching Ethical Fashion
“A Fashioning an Ethical Industry tutor training day and official launch of Sustainable Fashion: A Handbook for Educators edited by Liz Parker for Fashioning an Ethical Industry, UK, and Dr Marsha A. Dickson for Educators for Socially Responsible Apparel Business, USA.
This event will bring together educators from fashion-related courses and organisations around the country to share ideas and resources, and support tutors in teaching about ethical fashion. The day is aimed at tutors on any fashion-related further or higher education course who are looking to be inspired and share best practice with other tutors.
The event will also launch the HEA funded research, being coordinated by the Centre For Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion, into the needs and expectations of fashion industry employers in relation to sustainable education within fashion related courses at HE.
The event will take place at London College of Fashion between 9.30 – 4.30.” (FEI)
This weekend, Oxfam Langara will challenge the role of fashion in the context of human rights and social justice.
When: Friday, April 3rd, 2009, 6:00pm (to end @2am, Sat. April 4th)
Where: Fashion Show, Langara College, 100 West 49th Street, Cafeteria/ After Party, Tonic night club, Vancouver
According to the Facebook page:
The Oxfam Campaigns that we will be concentrating on are:
• fair trade
• education
• debt and aid
• health and sanitation
• HIV/AIDS
• gender equality
• Arms Control
The show will feature selected appetizers, refreshments, prizes and raffles, entertaining music and key note speakers such as Miriam Palacios, head of Oxfam B.C/Yukon Region and Peter Prontzos, Political Science Professor from Langara College. Ticket holders will have the opportunity to network within the Oxfam community, Vancouver Fashion Week designers, media and photographers, fashion industry leaders, local community leaders, leading social justice advocate, and the head of Oxfam B.C/Yukon Region.
Tickets are 20$, with all proceeds going to Oxfam Canada.
Katharine Hamnett, Slogan T-Shirt "No More Fashion Victims"
I have been obsessed with U.K. designer Katharine Hamnett for a long time. In fact, it was her slogan t-shirts that first showed me that there was opportunity to transform this industry; she is the quintessential example of a pissed off designer who refuses to stand for the high human cost of fashion. She is dedicated to the promotion of organic cotton, and runs a strong campaign against the conventional ‘white gold’:
“Conventional cotton represents 10% of world agriculture and uses 25% of the world’s pesticides.
100 million conventional cotton farmers, from Russia to South Africa, are living in conditions of abject poverty and near starvation.
Conventional cotton subsidies funded by American taxpayers are causing poverty in the developing world as they lower the world price for cotton. (Americans are the only ones that can change this by writing to their Congress people and telling them they insist on organic cotton clothing.)
20,000 people die every year from accidental pesticide poisoning in conventional cotton agriculture (World Health Organisation). Death by starvation is alarmingly prevalent and 200,000 cotton farmers commit suicide annually due to spiralling debts incurred from buying pesticides. A further 1,000,000 people a year suffer from long-term pesticide poisoning (Pesticide Action Network).
However, if farmers grow cotton organically and can sell it as such, this dire situation is reversed.
By growing organically, farmers get a 50% increase in their income – due to a 40% reduction in costs – and the 20% premium they receive for producing organic cotton allows them to feed, clothe, educate and provide healthcare for their children.
Organic cotton helps farmers trade their way out of poverty. It’s the only formula for survival in the cotton sector in the developing world.”
Another company that offers slogan t-shirts is American Apparel. I have been familiar with their ‘Legalize L.A.’ campaign shirt, but only recently came across their ‘Legalize Gay’ slogan t-shirt. The American Apparel slogan t-shirt wants you to promote and support the repeal of prop 8.
It got me thinking. For me, these slogan shirts represent the convergence of fashion and politics in a clear and positive way; they offer the consumer a sense of empowerment, and send a clear message of support. But what do you think?
