EDUCATION
Social Alterations is a learning hub for responsible fashion. In the lab you’ll find lesson plans, activities, workshops, games, etc., all for… free! What’s the catch? Well, if you want to learn with us, you’ve got to get serious about the social and ecological impacts of the fashion industry. Our education modules will do more than get you started, they’ll motivate you to inspire change…
BA(Hons) Fashion Design – Buckinghamshire New University
This exciting new degree in fashion has its emphasis in a creative approach to design with its unique emphasis on ethics and sustainability.
Centre for Sustainable Fashion – London College of Fashion
MA Fashion and the Environment introduces the concepts of sustainability and sustainable fashion design and development at a postgraduate level. By twinning fashion and the environment, London College of Fashion aims to take postgraduate students on unique interdisciplinary journeys.
The design process is explored, along with the fashion lifecycle and major environmental, cultural and social impacts associated with fashion. Through the course, students are encouraged to engage with innovative and radical ways to approach sustainable fashion solutions employing different perspectives on sustainability and different fashion business models.
Over the last ten years TED has been developing a set of practice-based sustainable design strategies that assist designers in creating textiles that have a reduced impact on the environment.
FURTHER READING
Loved Clothes Last – How the joy of rewearing and repairing your clothes can be a revolutionary act – Orsola de Castro
This book will equip you with a myriad of ways to mend, rewear and breathe new life into your wardrobe to achieve a more sustainable lifestyle. By teaching you to scrutinise your shopping habits and make sustainable purchases, she will inspire you to buy better, care more and reduce your carbon footprint by simply making your loved clothes last longer.
Following Orsola’s practical tips to lavish care and attention on the clothes you already own will not only have a positive environmental impact, but will be personally rewarding too: hand wash, steam and spot clean your clothes, air dry instead of tumble drying, or revive your clothes by sewing or crocheting.
Fast fashion leaves behind a trail of human and environmental exploitation. Our wardrobes don’t have to be the finish line; they can be a starting point. We can all care, repair and rewear. Do you accept the challenge?
Fashion Textiles Now – Janet Prescott 2013
Before the beautifully tailored men’s suit or the exquisite gown appears on the catwalk or in the store, the most important element comes into play – the place where fashion starts – the fabric. But how much do we actually know about the textiles we are wearing and does it matter? Behind the catwalks there is a whole hidden system which combines industry, glamour, high finance and above all, design. Its scope runs from high-tech industrial complexes to traditional spinning and weaving. It encompasses haute couture and tailoring for the elite to handmade craft fabric made on traditional looms and the everyday clothing we buy in our favourite shops. With information on where each fabric comes from, how it is made and its properties, ‘Fashion Textiles Now’ provides a complete guide to fashion textiles. Whether you are a student or professional in fashion, textiles, design or merchandising, a costume designer or curator, this book is for you.
The Sustainable Fashion Handbook – Sandy Black 2012
The word ‘handbook’ is rather misleading – this is more like an encyclopedia. Packed with authoritative features and facts, and inspiring images and ideas, it is dramatically more in-depth and comprehensive than any previous single publication on the subject. The book is divided into five thematic chapters covering every aspect of contemporary fashion from fashion cultures (from high street to blogosphere to couture), to the eco-footprint of the current resource-hungry and wasteful system, to the fashion business, employer of up to 40 million people worldwide. Finally a resources section provides comprehensive listings of leading organizations involved in campaigning, advising, certifying, footprinting and promoting sustainability worldwide.
Fashion & Sustainability: Design for Change – Kate Fletcher & Lydia Gross 2012
This book examines how sustainability has the potential to transform both the fashion system and the innovators who work within it. Sustainability is arguably the defining theme of the twenty-first century. The issues in fashion are broad-ranging and include labour abuses, toxic chemicals use and conspicuous consumption, giving rise to an undeniable tension between fashion and sustainability. The book is organized in three parts. The first part is concerned with transforming fashion products across the garment’s lifecycle and includes innovation in materials, manufacture, distribution, use and re-use. The second part looks at ideas that are transforming the fashion system at root into something more sustainable, including new business models that reduce material throughput. The third section is concerned with transforming the role of fashion designers and looks to examples where the designer changes from a stylist or creator into a communicator, activist or facilitator.
To Die For: Is fashion wearing out the world? – Lucy Siegle 2011
An expose on the fashion industry written by the Observer’s ‘Ethical Living’ columnist, examining the inhumane and environmentally devastating story behind the clothes we so casually buy and wear. Coming at a time when the global financial crisis and contracting of consumer spending is ushering in a new epoch for the fashion industry, To Die For offers a very plausible vision of how green could really be the new black. Taking particular issue with our current mania for both big-name labels and cheap fashion, To Die For sets an agenda for the urgent changes that can and need to be made by both the industry and the consumer. Far from outlining a future of drab, ethical clothing, Lucy Siegle believes that it is indeed possible to be an ‘ethical fashionista’, simply by being aware of how and where (and by whom) clothing is manufactured.
Naked Fashion – Safia Miney 2011
Safia Minney, the founder of People Tree – the pioneers in fair trade fashion – presents a guide to a more ethical, diverse and creative approach to the fabulous world of style and fashion which has a history of exploitation on many levels. Presented as a highly visual title, this perfectly timed release includes stunning photography, interviews with key player who are revolutionalising fashion and examples of how people are doing things differently to create a more ethical fashion world.
Eco Fashion – Sass Brown 2010
One of the strongest trends in fashion is the expression of ecological, social and community consciousness, which has recently moved upscale from organic cotton T-shirts to high fashion. There is now a wide range of companies offering welldesigned merchandise, from one-off art, recycled and redesigned clothing, organic and sustainable textiles and garment production, to a range of community and indigenous support cooperatives bridging the gap between traditional craft and high fashion. This book shows the range of companies making a difference in the area of sustainable design in fashion, exploding the myth that sustainable design is bad design, or at best basic design, by highlighting the range of companies producing desirable and well-designed apparel and accessories with a conscience. It not only demonstrates the range of products available around the globe, but explains the stories behind them and the communities they support, as well as showing how and where they make a difference.
