Thirteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

The fashion industry has been celebrated for more than a century. We have also started to witness the ill side-effects. Fashion is listed as the second most polluting industry after petroleum. As an educated generation of this industry, we have to acknowledge the responsibility to find a solution rather than sit back and contribute to cynicism. ‘Solve problems not just for mankind but for all life on earth .’(Bruce Mau 2016) A large percentage of the fashion industry still functions against sustainability, but at the same time we have many design educators and researchers in the fashion field believing, creating, and pushing sustainable and responsible concepts in fashion education. A decade ago these changes may have seemed impossible but now we are witnessing a huge wave of awareness, acceptance, and willingness to change. As faculty, we have been witness to graduating collections of students in various design institutes across India - eg. Pearl Academy, NIFT, NID etc. A quantitative and qualitative study of last ten years of graduating collections reflects a favorable increase in students working with sustainability concepts. Many students are incorporating these aspects of sustainability, from minimum or zero wastage of raw materials amd energy to eco-friendly creative surface developments, less machines, and more hand made. Does this mean that evolved design thinking and sustainable concepts in fashion could change our society life style? That is what we explore in this study.