Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys

by Kate Fletcher

This inspirational design handbook presents a new vision of sustainability in the fashion and textile sector based on design thinking and practice. It brings together for the first time information about lifecycle environmental impacts, practical alternatives, design concepts and social innovation, and frames them in a sustainability context. It challenges existing ideas about the scope and potential of sustainable fashion and textiles, and sets out a broader, more inter-connected and forward-looking picture drawing on ideas of human needs, industrial ecology, speed and rhythms, and participatory actions, as well as knowledge of materials.

The book not only adds to the understanding of this subject area, it also presents practical information for textile and fashion practitioners. All eight chapters present a combination of long-term and short-term solutions. They deal with making changes to industry as it exists today and at the same time they articulate a new vision for the sector based on sustainability principles.

Arranged in two sections, the first four chapters represent key stages of the lifecycle: material cultivation/extraction, production, use and disposal. Each explores design opportunities to improve resourcefulness supported by case studies and data and brings new perspective to these issues by framing them in an ecological context. The remaining four chapters are more conceptual and far-reaching. They are concerned with altering the scale and nature of consumption and not just the quantities of resources expended, and address wide-ranging ideas including: fashion, human needs, localism, services, shared products, creative participation, and fast and slow clothes. While each of these chapters are complete in and of themselves, 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.

Genres: Fashion, Sustainability, Nonfiction, Environment, Design, Art, Sewing

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Kate Fletcher is Professor of Sustainability, Design, Fashion at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, University of the Arts London, UK.

Reviews

[Sarah Guldenbrein · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was great. It's very much a textbook, which I wasn't quite expecting, but it's still quite readable. May be valuable to come back to later. In the end, it served to clarify that while I am often tempted by the study of fashion, my research interests lie in consumption patterns, alternative modes of production, and cultural norms.

Best line: [knowledge and study of sustainability in the sector is inhibited by] "...the flippant way in which fashion is commonly viewed both from outside and inside the profession: 'an immoral, self-indulgent industry...that lacks gravitas and a strong conceptual framework'. This perceived shallowness is further augmented by an ongoing gender bias that associates fashion with femininity and a favoring of 'feminine' skills of intuition, personal creativity and craft over the 'masculine' intellectual enquiry that is seen as an essential part of sustainability."

[April Stanley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book. Fletcher's book was among the first that I have read in my quest to study sustainable fashion as a graduate student. I feel that this book is a broad overview of sustainability for the fashion industry but also provides important, thought-provoking details that other books have not.

[Line Franzen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good basic book about sustainability with focus on the various aspects of the topic.
An overview of fibres and fabric in regards of sustainability. Models of comparisons and flow charge. Focus on ethics in the process.
Focus on use, recycling and resources.

Second part of the book is about the fashion system and how we need to focus and change.
Focus on consumption and need (chapter 5, a very good chapter). Focus on topics related to consumption: Producing locally and the speed with which we consume. The book ends with a chapter called: User maker, that focuses on fashion in a more positive, creative and personal light that takes it from global to local.

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for coursework but love it! A very detailed introduction of sustainable fashion, everyone who really wants to know the environmental and social impact of fashion industry should read this.

[crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book on sustainable fashion and textiles. She paints a broad overview of the industry using a systems thinking approach, discusses challenges and opportunities with different textiles, production methods, and interesting new avenues for the fashion industry to pursue.
Its a good book to read for starters, to get inspired, and to have an birds eye view of industry haps to date.

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a rather dry read, but it's certainly packed full of interesting information.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've only finished one chapter and already I am filled with ideas....