How Textiles And Fashion Designers Have Contributed And Approached Fundamental Issues Within Ecological Design

At times when sustainability seems to be the mantra for not only corporations but also the lay man, sustainable fashion is a much less understood term as "sustainability" alongside "fashion” are two seemingly contradictory concepts as fashion is all about change and sustainability is all about preservation. Sustainable fashion, in its purest form generates new ideas on how to produce fashion with a sense of ethics, organic or renewable resources, and socially responsible manufacturing techniques. Simply put, the term “eco-fashion” refers to stylized clothing that uses environmentally sensitive fabrics and responsible production techniques.

This manifesto proposes an approach to sustainable design that I am interested in exploring during my time studying architecture. The idea of sustainability is a complex one, not without apparent contradictions. This makes it difficult to define in a wholly satisfactory manner. For the purposes of this manifesto I will advert to the definition proposed by Jason McLennan who asserts that sustainable design: “seeks to maximize the quality of the built environment, while minimizing or eliminating negative impact to the natural environment.” I find this definition particularly useful in the emphasis which it places on quality. By quality, in this

According to the author of “Taking the Lead” Felice Silverman, “the introduction of LEED v4 represents the next step in the evolution of sustainable design, but it’s interesting to note that as we learn more about creating green spaces, new concerns continue appear”. The example she gives deals with encouraging people as designers to see products earn third-party certifications, and designers should remember to look at more than just the single-attribute benefits of products. Designers need to be able to arm themselves with the best information on sustainability there is, and continue to review process, systems and products that could potentially cause harm to the environment and the people

TenTree has created a product with the positioning to give customers clothing options that are environmentally and socially responsible. They promise to plant ten trees for every item purchased and only use factories that are approved by WRAP. (TenTree, n.d.) They also have a large selection of t-shirts, hoodies, sweaters, tanks, hats, and toques, in a variety of different colours and sizes. (TenTree, n.d.) Satisfying the customer wants for a wide variety of socially and environmentally responsible clothing has created functional-instrumental value for their customers.

Sustainability is the foundation upon which resilient and adaptive design was built. It “is based on a simple and long-recognized factual premise: Everything that humans require for their survival and well-being depends, directly or indirectly, on the natural environment” (Sustainability and the US EPA). Concern for the environment grew in the 1960’s, and after the creation of the EPA in 1970 the term sustainability came into use. “Sustainable development emerged as a result of significant concerns about the unintended social, environmental, and economic consequences of rapid population growth, economic growth, and consumption of natural resources.” (Sustainability and the US EPA). In the U.S., the history of sustainability is rooted in American

She first references many upstream efforts to change the way corporations and industries design, market, and produce their products. For instance, she frequently echoes the claims of the Upcycle’s McDonough and Braungart to take the toxins out of the design process in the beginning, like Europe is doing with chlorine removal from paper (Leonard, 54). Leonard also continually references closing the loop for production materials and changing values to ensure design is environmentally and socially sound (Leonard, 84, 103). Biomimicry is also celebrated as an influential and revolutionary design tactic (Leonard, 19). While those efforts are more top-down, Leonard also supports bottom-up, such as Greenmanager (Leonard, 188).

The title of Michael McDonough’s talk is Cradle to Cradle Design. Mr. McDonough is an architect and his talk focuses on the problem of how our Earth and our people are being hurt because the products we are designing are not safe or healthy. He starts by the talk referencing Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring” which brings up the possibility that we might kill all of the birds. He then talks about what he thinks is the fundamental issue, which is that design is a sign of human intentions. He thinks that we need to evaluate our designs given that we are the dominant species on the Earth and that we are the stewards of the Earth – in other words, we should be taking care of the Earth. He thinks that designers should be asking how can we create world peace and save the environment when we build things. Instead of starting with this question, designers of today don’t seem to have a plan. And the result of having no plan is tragedy, like global warming and mercury poisoning of children from coal plants.

Rachael Cassar’s clothes are very unique and eco-friendly. Her clothes are all made out of 90% recycled materials. She transforms them into something edgy, spectacular and creative. She is one of the most forward thinking designers of all time. Rachael says that in order for eco-fashion to ‘succeed’, designers need to replace cheaply made fashion with equally appealing sustainable items. This is good to the environment. Sustainable clothes are important because it reviews what we use to manufacture them in the first place (eg. soak them in chemicals). Eco-fashion is much better for the environment, people and animals. Rachael Cassar’s work on eco-fashion is truly exceptional.

One of the most heavily discussed topics, in this last decade, is the environmental decay of our planet. Diverse concepts have materialized in order to find solutions for the problem. Ecology and sustainable growth have been confirmed to be the main solutions currently. Innovations for sustainable growth include: creation of hybrid cars, recycling and minor discharge of carbon dioxide in factories among others (Christ 23). Environmental awareness was also introduced to the world of fashion, unfortunately, it wasn’t very successful; lately there has been a change of situation and that is what we are going to attempt to understand.

First, because the trend of ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION develops very fast, we want to encourage our designers to consider using green dressing materials or put some elements of eco-awareness in their creations. At the same time, we are going to use Environmental protection shopping bag in our business and use green materials to decorate our store.

We are all part of an interlinking system, a system that needs balance with humanity and nature at the forefront. As Designers it is important that we take self interest out of design and instead collaborate within our physical environment and make sure that from the get go, our designs should work around a collaborative system that has a wide breadth of professional fields and influence from existing infrastructures found within our world. Victor Papernak writes “eighty percent of the environmental impact of the products,services, infastructures around us is determined at the design stage.” I have chosen to explore collaborations within the natural world, our industrial ecology and social design as examples of how important working together with other professionals and the environment we live in are for the bigger picture. In Victor Papernak’s book Design for the real world, Papernak uses an anecdote to stress the importance of collaboration for successful design.

Which eventually discourage designer put in effort to considerate the social aspect during design thinking, the word “social sustainability” were being treated as ideological thought in design until recent years, the attention of social consideration in several industry has become mainstream.

This is a book by two researchers who are trying to find ways to build and make things that are friendlier to the environment. Their approach is very different from the usual ecological approach, which, as put by McDonough and Braungart, is to "be less bad." The regular approach has normally been to just reduce the amount of toxins in a product, or trying to collect and recycle goods, or adding expensive and bulky fixes to already existing systems. But not in this book; the authors’ idea is that designers and manufacturers should instead try to rethink and redesign the materials that they make with their end uses in mind. By using nontoxic materials that can also easily break down into quality materials, this creates byproducts that can be reused to manufacture quality items. The authors also recommend the planning of buildings and industrial complexes to use the environment that surrounds them for things like heating, cooling, and design. One of the strengths of the book is that the suggestions here are not just hypothetical situations. In fact, the book itself is made of a certain kind of polymer plastic and is also printed with nontoxic inks that can be easily washed off, which makes the material made available to produce another book. The authors have also worked on much bigger projects, such as the redesigning of the Ford facility in Michigan, based on these kinds of principles. The book is not only positive but also specific on how to design and manufacture things for

There are a large amount of social and environmental problems within the global apparel industry.

One natural response to the current crisis and the shift in designers’ discourse has been the engagement in Ecological Design, or Eco-design, described by Orr (2002) as a large concept that joins science and the practical arts with ethics, politics, and economics that, requires “not just a set of generic design skills but rather the collective intelligence of a community of people applied to particular problems in a particular place over a long period of time” (p.9). This endeavor, according to the author, is nothing less than the effort to harmonize the human enterprise with how the world works as a physical system and how it ought to work as a moral system. Eco-design has been useful in urban planning, industrial parks and networks, architecture, and products, especially technology, in which the concept has been extensively applied to the development and manufacturing. Within this context, it is recognized as a to reduce the impacts associated with the production and consumption of products.