Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys

Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys brings together for the first time information about lifecycle sustainability impacts of fashion and textiles, practical alternatives, design concepts and social innovation. It challenges existing ideas about the scope and potential of sustainability issues in fashion and textiles, and sets out a more pluralistic, engaging and forward-looking picture, drawing on ideas of systems thinking, human needs, local products, slow fashion and participatory design, as well as knowledge of materials.The book not only defines the field, it also challenges it, and uses design ideas to help shape more sustainable products and promote social change. Arranged in two sections, the first four chapters represent key stages of the lifecycle: material cultivation/extraction, production, use and disposal. The remaining four chapters explore design approaches for altering the scale and nature of consumption, including service design, localism, speed and user involvement. While each of these chapters is complete in and of itself, their real value comes from what they represent together: innovative ways of thinking about textiles and garments based on sustainability values and an interconnected approach to design.

Kate Fletcher has been working in sustainable fashion and textiles since the early 1990s. She now works as an independent consultant with clients including high street retailers, designer-makers and non-profit organizations. Kate finished a PhD in 1999 at Chelsea College of Art and Design, investigating sustainable design opportunities in the UK Textile Industry, before working as a post-doc researcher and spending four years as a lecturer in Eco Design at Goldsmiths College, University of London.