How can education foster sustainable change toward socially responsible fashion and apparel design and manufacturing practices?
Social Alterations hopes to foster socially responsible fashion design education through aggregating relevant material that will inspire fashion/textile and apparel instructors, researchers, designers and design enthusiasts to get on board with thinking about consequence in the industry.
Sign up to the Social Alterations Forum if you’re interested in sharing and contributing ideas on curriculum, research, projects, materials, design, etc. with this community.
This week, Michael Roller challenged young designers to reconsider saving the world.
Stop Saving the World
…Unless you actually are. Designers have identified that their skills can help people beyond the mass markets of the first world, but we’re far from making a big impact on our own. The truth is, some designers like talking about making a difference more than they like actually doing it. Raising awareness is only a small first step towards fixing one of the world’s many problems. If you really want to make a difference, think about volunteering at a soup kitchen…or moving to India.
Ramsey Ford is an industrial designer who recently took on this challenge by moving to India and starting the non-profit Design Impact. “Last year, I attended the ‘Design for a Better World’ conference at RISD. What struck me most about the conference was that the common thread was not design, but entrepreneurship. The mantra for the weekend seemed to be, ‘shut up and do it’.” Ramsey plans to make a real difference by gaining empathy for India’s true design needs. Admittedly, this is pretty bold, but what have you done lately to design a better future?
Rolland is merely advising recent graduates to, in a sense, shut-up and get-started already. In the context of ‘self-promotion’, selling your personal brand as ‘sustainable’ or ‘green’ (or whatever buzz word you happen to run with) is really nothing above insult if you are not in fact taking this challenge seriously.
Matthew E. May wrote “Design Thinking 101” earlier this month and cited the Wikipedia definition of the process (taken from a 1969 book by Herbert Simon called The Sciences of the Artificial):
Design thinking is a process for practical, creative resolution of problems or issues that looks for an improved future result. It is the essential ability to combine empathy, creativity and rationality to meet user needs and drive business success. Unlike analytical thinking, design thinking is a creative process based around the “building up” of ideas.
Pergaps the real challenge is for designers to stay away from Design Thinking as a brand image alone, and move creatively toward incorporating the process into every aspect of their work.
Ethics have a high profile in the fashion industry today. Are you equipped, as a tutor or student, with the knowledge and skills to engage with these issues?
Fashioning an Ethical Industry (FEI) runs staff training and student workshops at schools, colleges and universities on themes related to working conditions in garment manufacture. Through our training events we encourage staff and students to critically examine different perspectives on workers’ rights and initiatives to improve conditions.
FEI training combines our extensive knowledge with a participatory educational approach, building on participants’ existing knowledge and experience and using a range of activities and different media such as films, role-play and presentations.
Based out of Toronto, Canada, Fashion Takes Action is a member’s based organization dedicated to transforming the fashion industry. FTA helps businesses, as well as designers, students, consumers and researchers, become more aware of their social and environmental impact, while learning the benefits of operating a more sustainable business.
Up this week on the FTA site is video coverage of their recent event “Sustainable Fashion 101.” Presentations from FTA Founder, Kelly Drennan, Andrea Stairs, Head of Marketplace Development at eBay, Ellen Karp, President of Anerca, Elsa Poncet, ECOCERT Europe, and Lorraine Smith, an Independent Sustainability Consultant can be viewed here.
Many clothing retailers are offering eco-products in response to consumer demand for green. But it’s not always clear why products are eco-friendly; in some cases the environment may actually be the worse for wear in spite of the greenest of intentions.
There is a lot of information about environmentally sustainable fabric out there. Some of it is helpful and based on scientific, time-tested facts. Some of it is greenwash. And some of it is a confusing mix of both.
Why is bamboo more sustainable than cotton? Or is it?
Is the flame-retardant in babies’ sleepwear safe for the environment? Or for babies?
Why do some say wool is baaaad for the environment even though it’s renewable?
This half-day workshop will take a life cycle approach to garments and environmental sustainability. During the workshop participants will:
Experience a hands-on survey of raw materials in fabrics including wool, cotton, flax, cellulosics (rayon, bamboo, soy), and petrochemical-based fibres, providing an understanding of what these materials are in their simplest form, and how they are harvested/extracted and processed into cloth.
Review the environmental and social risks and opportunities associated with different fibre sources throughout the life cycle of textile products.
Identify through interactive discussion ways to measure, manage, and communicate environmental improvements, firmly instilling the “eco” in “eco-garb.”
Talk 7: The Movement of Cultural Interpretation – Pattern is Now Good, Pattern is Now Bad (Clips from Ikea’s “Chuck Out Your Chintz” campaign, c.1993.)
Thanks to the Fashioning and Ethical Industry Bulletin for highlighting these upcoming talks – Slow Textiles: Making the Myths Visible-A New Approach to Sustainability in Design & Design Education 2009/10. The slow textiles group presents a platform for Design, Community, Dialogue and the dissemination of Textile Methodologies that are Sustaining as well as Sustainable. There are 9 talks in total. You can catch the details on the Social Alterations Events Calendar. Stay tuned for more updates- sessions 1-5 are up on the calendar, but the dates for sessions 6-9 are TBA.
Dr. Emma Neuberg’s forthcoming talks and workshops are designed to stimulate debate in and around the subject of Sustainable Thinking in Design & Design Education. These unique and pioneering dialogues arise from 15 years teaching experience and design research. They weave design, design education, psychology, well-being theory, sociology and semiotics into a new structure for study and dialogue.
Talk 1(November 21st, 2009): Oppression and Dysfunction Through Design – A Window on to Destructive Social Aspects of Design
Talk 2 (February 27th, 2010): Different Ways of Thinking – An Introduction to Making Thought Conscious
Talk 3 (March 13th, 2010): Identification of Designers’ Motivations – Locating & Giving Voice to the Designer’s Long-term Vision
Talk 4 (May 15th, 2010): Group Dynamics, Power Struggles & Social Hierarchies – Shedding Light on Old Patterns of Production
Talk 5 (June 26th, 2010): Imperative Psychoanalytic Tools for Design Practice – Introduction to Projection and the Mechanics of Enactment
Talk 6 (TBA): Repression and Dysfunction in Design – A Window on to the Dark Forces Manifest in Products
Talk 7 (TBA): The Movement of Cultural Interpretation – Pattern is Now Good, Pattern is Now Bad
Talk 8 (TBA): Imperative Psychoanalytic Tools for Critical Theory – An Introduction to Object Relations Theory
Talk 9 (TBA): Semiotics as Starting Place – A Designer’s Constructive Tool
NOTE: This event has been re-scheduled from June when it was cancelled due to the tube strike
Title: What not to wear – child labour and cotton Location: London Link out: Click here Description: Uzbekistan is the third biggest exporter of cotton in the world. Its booming cotton industry generates over US$1billion annually, but the industry, which largely supplies the European market, is underpinned by a system of state-sponsored forced labour, particularly of children.
This event will focus on what can be done to end the use of forced labour in the cotton industry. Considering the action taken by some retailers to ban Uzbek cotton from their products, why do other retailers continue to use it? How can we as consumers ensure that the products we buy are free from slave labour and that we are not inadvertently contributing to the problem?
Film Screening of White Gold: the true cost of cotton by the Environmental Justice Foundation followed by a panel discussion featuring Lucy Siegle, journalist, author and presenter (chair), Joanna Ewart-James (Anti-Slavery International), Juliette Williams (The Environmental Justice Foundation) and Steve Grinter (International Textile, Garment & Leather Workers’ Federation).
This event will be hosted by EJF, Amnesty International and Anti-Slavery International on October 8th at the Human Rights Action Centre in London.
Title: All Our Futures 2 Conference Link out: Click here Description: All Our Futures 2, through future forecasting from world experts, business and design leaders, researchers, learners and teachers, will address the sustainability challenges of the twenty first century. This conference brings together the imperatives of design, business and education: that we design a world that we can go on living in, and that we communicate to each other the values, insights, skills and technologies informing this design.
As natural resources are depleted and climate changes for the worse, design for sustainability becomes increasingly urgent. Designers, commerce, researchers, teachers and learners are called upon to come together, at this 3 day conference at the University of Plymouth, to shape strategy and to involve themselves in decision-making about products and services appropriate for a rapidly changing social and material environment.
Title: Ethical Fashion Show Paris: Education For Sustainable Fashion Location: Paris, France Link out: Click here Description: Fashioning an Ethical Industry will be hosting a round table on Education for Sustainable Fashion at the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris from 1pm to 3:30pm on Sunday October 4th 2009. The event will take place at Tapis Rouge: 67, rue du fg St Martin 75010 Paris.
Speakers and themes are to be confirmed. The event is aimed at fashion tutors and students but everyone is welcome. Tickets will be available from the Ethical Fashion Show website nearer the time.
Title: Copenhagen Co’creation Summit: “Designing for Change 09” Location: Copenhagen, Denmark Link out: Click here Description:
2008 was the year when the well-described model for growth based on industrial thinking finally proved to be unsustainable in terms of economy, ecology and equity. We are not facing future change and challenges; we are in the midst of them – and will continue to be so for years to come. We need to approach this new reality with new tools and a new mindset – a mindset based on co-creation and design thinking. Summit
The Danish Design Association has set out to gather in Copenhagen twenty-five international leaders, experts and practitioners to join an executive network for an inaugural summit, which will take place on August 29, 2009. The purpose of the summit is to address business issues of significant global interest through engaging in, exploring and developing new practices within co-creation and design. Seminar
The following day, On August 30, we invite further 200 leaders, experts and practitioners to join the network at a seminar where the executive network will unfold and share their knowledge and discussions from the day before through talks, on-stage-interviews, workshops and discussions with the audience. Manifesto
The outcome of the two days will form the Copenhagen Co’creation Manifesto. The Manifesto is a set of business actions based on the agenda of this year’s theme, Designing for Change, and is open and free for everybody to bring home and bring into practice.
Click here for a list of speakers, including
Bruce Nussbaum, BusinessWeek, Richard Grefé, AIGA, and Emily Pilloton, Project H Design.
A new report out of the National Labor Committee today cites multiple human rights violations at the Muse Textile Ltd. garment factory in Al Hassan Industrial City, Irbid, Jordan.
Human Trafficking
Primitive Dorm Conditions
Substandard Food
Forced Overtime and Seven-Day Work Weeks
A Failure to Communicate
Check out the full report, as well as the Ministry of Labor Report from July 19th. These workers still have 11 months left on their contract. The NLC is calling for the factory to be brought up to international standards and Jordanian law of compliance immediately.
