Breaking Down Sustainable Fashion Design: 101 Edition
The fashion industry causes challenges from last-stage capitalism, unethical globalization, and the prevailing culture of consumerism, individualism, and materialism. Otherwise known as fast fashion, we need a total transformation to defend the well-being and rights of people and the planet. Sustainable fashion design calls for a holistic transformation of values, practices, and societal paradigms. From schools across the world to consumers in the United States, we all are part of the shift towards sustainable fashion. In this article, we will explore how sustainable fashion design is a shift in mindset and interconnected actions.
What Is Sustainable Fashion Design?
Fast fashion design is created from a linear production process with little consideration for the waste and social impact it creates. We cannot bear more clothing ending up in landfills in the middle of a climate crisis. Action must be taken to create sustainable solutions to create a more ethical and sustainable industry. Sustainable fashion design is a shift towards re-envisioning the industry as we know it, one that uses environmentally friendly resources, humane values in the industry, and improvements within fashion’s interconnected sectors. Solutions should reflect a patchwork of individuals, and social and political creativity to collectively move forward. We cannot forget how the fashion industry is so interconnected to different industries and influenced by economic logic, societal forces, and individual habits. Our collective efforts should be intersectional and not siloed in just the fashion industry to create a meaningful route toward change. We need to ask ourselves what skills we need to cultivate, who we need to collaborate with, and how to create tangible goals to move beyond fast fashion. A key way to get started is to detangle ourselves from conventional fashion design processes that train us to see fashion in a standardized way.
linear fashion
Reconsider what systems you are using to design clothing.
Photo Credit: Daniela Monasterios Tan
Design is an art form that should not be confined to a finished piece that will be easy to replicate a thousand times over in sweatshops. As designers, no matter if we are students or consumers, we have the responsibility to design for people and the planet. Yet, our current industry trains aspiring fashion designers to support fast fashion brands by teaching them how to think and behave around fashion. So we have to ask ourselves: Are we fashion designers if we are only designing cheap, trendy clothing? We need to redefine our role as fashion designers to move beyond popular aesthetics and standardized practices that have gone unquestioned. Design should be for social change versus for profit, where we sketch for paradigm shifts that challenge the industry and bring alternatives to life. This work is critical when there is enough clothing for the next six generations. Sustainable fashion design must meet current times and strategically use the discarded materials filling our landfills. If we ignore current issues, we directly benefit from the oppressive and extractive conditions in the industry. The climate crisis is exacerbated when we fail to temper monopoly powers backed by the fossil fuel industry. Systemic issues can be tackled by pressuring for legislation and demand for organic, low-chemical, and renewable fibers. All the while, as designers who exist within realms of ecological responsibility and social justice, we must take on deep critique of the industry's fundamental norms and practices.
The Difference Between Fast Fashion Design and Sustainable Fashion Design
You are a fast fashion designer when you uplift the current fashion industry and don’t take active steps in transforming it. Take proactive steps away from fast fashion today because it’s never too late. You begin to move towards sustainable fashion design when you start tackling systemic issues. Adopt a critical lens to the normalized trends, lack of quality in pieces, and lack of accountability from major fashion actors. We must reimagine fashion and aspire to use what we have to change how we design fashion for the masses. Sustainable fashion design will never be as simple as making clothing more sustainably, its true essence is being a vehicle for big thinking, broad imagination, and a new political vision of alternative worlds. It is also a “deeper” practice than we first assume, yet styling ourselves is an act of social identity, normalization of values, and support of structures. Clothing is a very important part of how we feel and show up in the world. And the great thing about sustainable fashion is that you don’t have to trade your style and individuality to achieve sustainability in the industry. However, we have to be cautious that we don’t stay closed-minded that fashion is only about aesthetics. It is a moral imperative that we move towards the “aesthetic of use”, which focuses on upcycling, distressing clothing, and embracing the deconstruction of fashion.
It is common for old clothing to be repurposed to begin a journey into sustainable fashion design. Upcycling challenges our imagination and forces our creativity to activate to avoid the piece being thrown, and hopefully turn into something we will love and wear for years to come. However, upcycling is a short-term solution, given it often helps us begin having confidence toward shifting to sustainable practices. But even if this is where we start, if we hope to transform the industry, we need to take a deep dive into critical design theory. Linear fashion processes should no longer be acceptable in our state of the world. Design needs to be re-envisioned by taking on a root-based, nature-inspired vision of fashion. Take the time to sit in nature to recognize the power and beauty of our planet. Touch the roots of a tree, because, like them, we are all connected. We will not solve fast fashion alone Sustainable fashion design will only be effective when we use what already exists with a collective effort to create a new path forward. There is no set road map, but we must not uphold fast fashion design because it is easy and normal to do.
How to Get Started With Sustainable Fashion Design
You can be a sustainable fashion designer wherever you are and with what you have. You don’t need a fancy degree or certificate to say you are ready and equipped to be a sustainable fashion designer. Consider challenging yourself to start your journey by taking an item from your closet that has special memories attached to it and upcycling it. Using what matters the most allows you to see what risks you are willing to take. It’s common to see fashion as a logical concept, unattached to our personhood. Emotionally struggling to even think about de-stitching or altering an item you care about is a step needed to attach yourself to your craft and detach from business-as-usual logic. Journal what you feel while upcycling an important piece and what blockages you face. We stand to lose everything if we don’t confront our tensions and struggles around clothing. You should focus on the ‘becoming’ of the garments to honor their past and inherent value versus hoping you’ll become someone from making clothing. Sustainable fashion design should always start and end by trying to honor and re-produce a memory within the clothing you hold in your hand. If you don’t know the history of the item you are working with, consider creating its deeper meaning that aligns with a collection that could echo a better world for all.
Sustainable fashion design will come with trial and error where imperfection is a natural part of the outcome. Nature is not perfect nor should we expect our work to be either. Take the personal risk of not having all the answers and of messing up. You will revert to fast fashion thinking if you do not have a deep investment and sense of accountability in what you do and how you do it. Do not turn off your heart or mind to what you’re creating. It is easy to not feel directly responsible for the industry if you have been designing in a way that does not negatively impact you or your loved ones. Yet, no matter how ethical and sustainable you already are, we have the imperative to keep growing and learning. Challenge yourself to take risks and embrace teamwork. As fashion designers, it can be easy to want to pull out your sketchbook and lose yourself in your grand visions of what collections should look like. Yet, what is fashion when it is done alone? Honestly, fashion is the following when envisioned for our own sake: It is fantastical mythmaking if you create collections that do not address the deeply exploitative and unsustainable fashion system we are in. Instead, embrace interconnectedness with critical synthesis, broad imagination, and a holistic vision for a better future. Fashion is so much more than its end product, so much more than a collection to be gawked at. If you don’t question the conventional fashion systems and refuse to take sustainable action, you otherwise will take on a conformist role that further fuels overconsumption. We don’t need more clothing on a dying planet.
Sustainable Fashion Design Careers and Opportunities
Imagine a fashion design career that mimics the adaptive natural planet versus our current capitalistic logic. You will most likely not find these sorts of careers on LinkedIn or Indeed, which calls us to redefine how to get sustainable and ethical fashion jobs. The most common design careers will come from fast fashion brands that have the funding to employ talent across the globe. However, sustainable fashion is a burgeoning sector in the industry that does not employ nearly as many people. It is not yet popular in our current society to make clothing that mirrors our planet: imperfect, temperamental, and full of risk. Yet, fast fashion promises standardization to the masses and economic opportunity to shareholders. This will make finding fast fashion design jobs common and sustainable fashion design ones harder to find. You will likely be forced to pave your opportunities by following your values and ethics. Be open to paving your path in the (sustainable) fashion industry to break free from the oppressive and standardized systems telling us how to operate. We need to change design thinking and view current fashion waste as raw material that is in abundance.
Sustainable fashion design careers will most likely challenge traditional design practices and explore innovative and creative processes. It does not begin or end in a neat, linear way nor will solutions ever be fully complete. Emerging into fashion will also be ever-changing as our world changes and flows. And fair warning, it will be a struggle to make money from sustainable fashion design if you do not make money from your efforts or creations. Don’t get discouraged tho, and do not let capitalism and challenges stop you from sitting with “finished” clothing and deconstructing it to find a path forward. You can make collections that escape the conformity of pre-made garments. No matter the difficulty of achieving aesthetic aspirations from limited materials, don’t let it deter you from telling the story that needs to be told. We must keep the industry’s sustainability concerns top of mind and fight for an inhabitable world for future generations. It will take grit and tenacity but we can set the example of a new vision for the industry. A sustainable fashion designer's work, therefore, becomes that of an activist and a “slow thinker”, focused on creating sustainable systems and principles versus just creating products. We become repositioned as co-designers who participate in open-ended design processes versus mere consumers.
The Future is Sustainable Fashion Design
We need a fashion industry that is moving in harmony and balance with the planet and people’s well-being. The climate crisis will continue to worsen if we do not change the future of fast fashion. It will bring us to what matters most, our internal roots, and are interconnected nature to the world. The future of sustainable fashion design is not radical, rather it is common sense thinking ... as natural as a leave on a tree. It makes an industry possible to design for our community versus our individualistic visions of fashion and beauty. One that that will reckon a fun spirit where we play with garments versus set sketchbook visions and obsolete mood boards. This spirit should not be constrained by profit-driven goals and where we have the time to be in community with others. So, create spaces to work creatively, and brainstorm together on how to reinterpret and design discarded clothing and fabrics, where skills such as embroidery, drapery, and sewing are wshared and nurtured to create collections that amplify the beauty of used garments (versus hiding them).
“As an analogy, the world of sustainability themes in textiles and fashion is a place of mountains, valleys, plateaus, and swampy ground. The mountains rise up like beacons or navigation points and show us ideals, values, and direction (where do we want to head?) The valleys in between represent where we are now, at the beginning of our journey, in the rich, fertile and enthusiastic soil of ideas and possibilities, and still perha[s a little unsure of how the landscape will unfold. The swamps and plateaus represent the difficult terrain where progress is slow. Perhaps it is uncharted territory, a dead end or the start of a potentially exciting new area of investigation. Yet no matter how bogged down we become or whichever vantage point we climb to, how bogged down we come or whichever vantage point we climb to, we have a sense that no part of this world exists in isolation from the rest. The landscape is a whole and it unfolds before us, changing, eroding, and rising up over time…..”- Kate Fletcher, Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys
It is time for sustainable fashion design to address the urgent need for a holistic transformation in values, practices, and societal paradigms. Actively move towards sustainability and question conventional norms, while adopting an aesthetic of use and interconnectedness to forge a new path forward. The journey towards sustainable fashion design is a continuous process of trial and error, with a call to all designers, including you, to take risks, and work collaboratively to address the deep-seated issues within the industry. The future of sustainable fashion design is common sense, a natural extension of our interconnected relationship with the planet, promoting harmony and balance for the well-being of both people and the Earth. Take action by using what you own and making beautiful collections for our people and the planet.
