Sustainability In Fashion

Sustainability in Design Report

Sustainability is important as it impacts our social, cultural and physical environment. In the Fashion and Design industry, some fashion designers take sustainability in textiles very seriously. Textiles are anything from a simple dishcloth that you use every day to the obvious one, your clothing. Sustainability in the fashion industry involves ensuring that the garment that you are making can get maximum wear in its life cycle. Sustainability can be defined as when fashion meets nature. Designers such as Miranda Brown, keep in mind the environmental damage and changes when creating and piecing together their garments.

Miranda Brown

Miranda Brown’s clothing line, Conscious Cloth, practise sustainability in

According to William Mace, “In 2000, the New Zealand clothing and soft-goods retail market was worth $1.532 billion according to Statistics New Zealand. Ten years later that number has jumped to $2.261b, at an average increase of 5.7 per cent per year”. This is a very large amount of money. A large amount of money is also contributed to the economy worldwide. Think about it, people go shopping, what do they buy? Clothing, shoes, towels, dishcloths. The bulk of products made in today’s world have something to do with the textile industry. Point is the fashion, design and textile industry contribute a very large amount of money towards the economy. An excellent way that will contribute to the economy is to produce many more sustainable products that will upsell in the modern market. The sustainable products in the fashion and design industry will allow consumer to up cycle the garments when they decide, recycle and make into something completely new or reuse the product, for example an old towel can be made into dishcloths, rags or dog blankets. Now would this be a much better use of resources and

A garments lifecycle starts from when the fibres for the fabric are collected, whether this is pulling cotton of a cotton plant or unwinding silk worm cocoons for silk fibres even using the hair from a shorn goat. From there on out, everything that is done to the fibres all contribute to the lifecycle of a product. Lifecycle, innovation and sustainability is something that a majority of designers strive to achieve. All three of these aspects combined produce a long-lasting, durable, purposeful, fashionable and beautiful piece of art-wear that is not harmful too our environment. If a consumer chooses to do so, they are able to up-cycle or recycle this garment. Relationships between lifecycle, innovation and sustainability are crucial parts of sustainable design. These three aspects all link