This blog show was how I - a designer student, approached Sustainable Fashion. Just a quick reminder that I am still learning a lot about fashion in general and Sustainable Fashion in particular. So my knowledge is not the most trusted source. Feel welcome to correct me in the comment section and let's learn together.
What is Sustainable Fashion?
A general definition is: "Sustainable fashion (also known as eco-fashion and ReFashion) is a movement and process of fostering change to fashion products and the fashion system towards greater ecological integrity and social justice"( Wikipedia).
" For the better Planet" - This is the ultimate goals
Now, why is Sustainable Fashion matter?
I am sure by now, even if you are not into Fashion, you have come across the term from literarily everywhere. Sustainable Fashion had been in the talk of the industry from the 2010s and just a few years ago, it became the IT word.
My thought:
I would be lying if I said it was easy when I was researching this topic. I am not the most knowledgeable in this area and I struggled at first because it was a vague concept to me. Sustainable Fashion is a very detailed topic and you need to have decent knowledge to proceed with the collection. To me, it is a field where you cannot fool anyone with your talking, you need to do a lot of research, learn the basics and find your way into the topic.
The above chart - my note consisted of what branches of Sustainable Fashion you could invest into
Remember you want to have an opinion toward the subject, whether you agree to Sustainable Fashion or not,
It is your thought but makes sure it is convincing enough for people if you want to present your collection.
Before deciding on a specific target of Sustainable Fashion, I suggest doing general researches, getting to know the topic first then seeing where your direction will be.
Books for your recommendation:
Laurence King, London.Brown, S. 2010.Eco-fashion. Laurence King, London.
Goworek, H., 2007. Fashion Buying. John Wiley & Sons.
Rissanen, T., & Mcquillan, H. 2016.Zero waste fashion design. Bloomsbury, London.
Books are the base information for you to get to know the subject, of course, you will need more than that, so here are some online references for you:
ethicalfashionforum.com - Ethical Fashion Forum (EFF) is a not-for-profit network focusing upon social and environmental sustainability in the fashion industry.
businessoffashion.com - The Business of Fashion has gained a global following as an essential daily resource for fashion creatives, executives, and entrepreneurs in over 200 countries.
When you have more or less understanding about the topic, here are some of the key questions that you should consider while developing your project:
What aspects of Sustainable Fashion that you care about the most?
-> Help decide your collection concept
Why do you choose this topic?
-> This question acts as your goal to achieve throughout this collection
How will you be designing your collection to show your approach to Sustainable Fashion?
-> This can be material, the process that goes behind the collection
To me, this summarizes the so-called inspiration for you to develop the collection.
Personal Journey: Research
Now for me, I started by reading the suggested book and online sources. What came out from reading a lot of articles was:
"Okay, I will be promoting Sustainable Fashion, but in which area? "
It is hard to try to target the whole sustainable area because it is such a wide topic, so help yourself and focus on one first. A good reminder is to
Search for a topic that would represent your style. Commitment goes a long way.
You would be amazed at how flexible sustainable fashion is!
For eg: I care about streetwear, so what is the obvious problem with the industry? Well, the resemblance of the fast fashion industry and streetwear is inevitable: Overproduce which leads to Overconsumption and the results: Thousands of clothing is thrown every single day. Think about the amount of waste, work, and money being poured into dust. So what can I do? Ting-ting that is my subject.
Understanding perspective of Sustainable Fashion could help you to have more aware of what you are doing. People always gonna question your opinion so impress them with your knowledge!
After you have figured out the issue that you want to target; the next step is to find a way to solve/show the issue of your subject. This could be summarized into questions:
What is the cause of the problems?
In what ways are designers/ brands have been doing to solve the issue? Is it working? ( Refer to the development of the particular industry)
What is the element within the chosen subject that could be further developed? ( You could also think about the technology, future, materials, etc)
It can be confusing to understand, so here is my example:
"My target is Streetwear Industry. The problem is overproduced, overconsumption and negligence
Streetwear brands, like ( name of the brands) have not been involved in the sustainable movement, and have been dodging the bullet in the media because they are not classified as traditional fast fashion brands. "
This is not to criticize the brands, but for us, the upcoming designer to see and analyze if and how to make a change. If you bring the problems then you either have to bring the light to the issues or bring a solution. If you do not agree with the movement, you should explain why and convince the audience with evidence.
For consideration: It could be quite interesting to see the polarity of two topics come together so that could be another consideration for you. At least that what my topic was about, Ethnic Textile vs Streetwear.
When you have an idea of your collection, you should plan your next step; which is finding factors to make your collection come alive.
For me, since I proposed Ethnic Textile, I need to find the source and make sure it is authentic. And lucky for me, my country is known for making traditional textile, sadly not as many as it used to be. So that gave me the reason to promote. Since I cannot directly go home and source, I take the luck with online sources and it was not easy at all. And I would suggest finding every online platform, including Social Media, that is where I managed to find a shop that uses directly ethnic textile from the Hmong tribe and they did shipping from Vietnam to Singapore.
A piece of advice:
Sometimes, the answer is right in front of you so don't be panic if you can't see the element yet. Good things take time!
That is where I will stop this post. We went through the basics of Sustainable Fashion, the research, and the preparation for the collection. The upcoming post would be about my process and I would be sharing some of the techniques that I learned which could be interesting for your upcoming projects.
Thank you for reading and stay tuned for my next post
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