Manifesto:
Prologue
In the current ever changing world, human living continues to grow costly towards the environment. How we live is embraced with the convenience of accessibility and availability to goods and services. But while our reliance on these convenient practices continue to grow, so does our impact on the environment in exercising them. The introduction of ‘Fast fashion’ has propagated clothing waste to becoming among the top sources of pollution to the planet, behind only oil and gas. With this reality, designers are left to adapt to these living conditions, where clothes being a living necessity, bought and disposed every day, solutions must cater in a non-disruptive manner. Sustainable design solutions must explore current technological, economical, and social needs when considering the global crisis of fast fashion, and its impact on the environment.
The difficulty of addressing fast fashion lies in the addiction we have to fast fashion, making it impossible to leave. The design of these fast and mass produced clothes has boosted the net value of many fashion companies and clothing manufacturers, improving overall economic values, while greatly satisfying consumers. Thus, sustainable solutions must be found, either in the manufacturing process, the disposal practice, or in the culture of fast fashion altogether.
I. The Leap
As battles for more sustainable design rage on, many decisions made by people today have some consequences of sort to the environment. With our convenient ways of living becoming progressively more interwoven into our lives, the planet’s health declines due to design outcomes having many consequences in fulfilling one need, while creating a problem in another. Would we jeopardize our convenient living conditions for the space we live in?
In saying this, it has been argued that many solutions cannot be put into practice to address fast fashion because of the lack of resources and support, or the impact it would have on the economy of each country (both manufacturing ones and consumer market ones). The solution must be able to support the environment, while catering to people, whether consumers or workers, allowing convenience and the existence of a job.
II. Design Empathetically
I believe that we need to engage not only the product and manufacturing methods, but most importantly the users behind them too. In the end, people are the ones wearing and purchasing these clothes, and in convincing consumers to practice sustainable practices and perspectives would naturally change the need for the convenience of the pollution-reliant heavy processes.
However, despite the waste processes being the main topic, the end process is not always where design solutions lie. With fast fashion being a problem that’s so interwoven into human culture of living, many approaches must be taken to systematically reduce the impact. Thus, with the emergence of new designs and technology, design customisation must be considered. In creating a product which users are able to feel or establish some form of emotional attachment to or individuality to a given product would be a good start.
III. Design for the Future and Nature
In addition to the perspective based design changes on us consumers, manufacturing and waste must always be considered for the future of the world and planet. Currently, bio-technology poses to be one of the most promising innovative design practices, proposing many sustainable design solutions. This is demonstrated from the study in 2015 through to 2017 analyzing the global economic benefit conveyed through the global area crop which were produced, grown, and harvested through biotechnological methods.
Being immensely human friendly is important, but is not the only thing we as designers must consider, where these outcomes were due to the negligence of the possibility of these design consequences and outcomes in serving one purpose greatly at the expense of the other. Ultimately, despite many design proposals which led to the origin of the current fast fashion culture being brilliant in providing economic and living condition benefits, it does not consider the outcome towards our living environment, and rapidly draws us closer towards an unsustainable future.
IV. Design with Others
“None of us is as smart as all of us.” – Ken Blanchard
Teamwork has always prevailed as a human trait. We are not perfect beings, so we must rely on each other to deliver the best outcomes. As designers, we must aid each other in our opinions, and criticize each other honestly in order to have improved solutions. Working with those in need is particularly important, where it is fundamental to developing the most refined solutions.
V. Embrace Yourself
When designing, it is important to always consider ourselves. What do our experiences show us? What do the people in our lives demonstrate to us about the world, or what the world around us needs?
Speculative Design:
I. Context: Self Clothing Customisation
If mass consumption through fast fashion continues to grow without sustainable interventions, the future, health, and environmental living conditions of many populations will decline. It can be expected that fast fashion would be one of the toughest to make transitions out from due to the impact it would have on our current living convenience of consumer markets. Mountains and mountains of fabric clothing waste continue to pile, but with the occurrence of the Covid-19 pandemic affecting the past two years, now is the most critical time to intervene (Saurabh Bhatia, 2018).
Due to the chemical components of the fabrics (dyes, material, etc) as well as the large amounts of waste accumulated over the many years of negligence and careless disposal practices, the environment has taken a negative toll from our clothes. The exponential growth of fast fashion led to an immense difference in the amount of clothes properly disposed of compared to those being mass produced, eventually becoming a global crisis.
II. Technology
Technology continues to progress accordance to what our current difficulties are, and with the pandemic, naturally, much of our technology now integrates the use of self-identification, scanning apps and many more individualised tech-interactions. Much of the global network operates through these protocols, meaning that now would be the most critical time to combine these modern technologies to introduce new approaches to these interactions for clothing.
Through the use of 3D modelling technology, I believe that a self-scanning product can be introduced for shopping and fashion purposes. An app oriented design which centres on the application of scanning oneself to modify body dimensions. Product customisation has been a passive and social approach which now can be applied through technological means.
III. Social
As a social solution, the product would achieve a strong sense of emotional attachment from the user whom the clothing is fitted to. The sense of appreciation towards one’s own work would also be influential to the user being unlikely to waste the product, having it most likely to be handed down if not re-used, recycled, up-cycled.
III. Economy
With the economy being heavily influenced by clothing stocks and outcomes from purchases, some places need these processes to keep the countries going, and families fed, while some will be affected through simply lacking clothes. Like the transition of fast fashion clothing practice being learned throughout the years, the design solution must also be learned.
Design Idea: Kustom Klothing
User’s dimensions are scanned through the lens of their camera. The user will be able to generate their general body dimensions. In creating a 3D-model of the body, face morphing and body models will be used to maximize user experience as the personalization process is vital. Users are prompted to shape out and modify the clothing as they see fit, accordingly to their body dimensions, making it unique to them. With this basic technology being supplied and used as our new purchase practice will insight sustainability through product + user interaction. The in considering the economic, social, and current technology, the design solution aims to target the creation process rather than the disposal. This will enable the current markets to not be disrupted, securing economic stability, while enabling people to waste clothing less, and potentially make better decisions in the disposal of their self-crafted clothing.
Story Board: Kustom Klothing product creation
