Clothing Cultures 5.1 is now available!

Intellect is delighted to announce that *Clothing Cultures
<https://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=222/view,page=0/>
*5.1 is now available! For more information about the issue, click here >>
https://bit.ly/2Mo025c

*Special Issue*: Sustainable Fashion

*Article list:*

*Sustainability in the fashion industry*

Authors: Debbie Moorhouse And Danielle Moorhouse
Page Start: 3

*Designing a sustainable brand strategy for the fashion industry*

Authors: Debbie Moorhouse And Danielle Moorhouse
Page Start: 7

Fashion is widely considered the second most destructive industry to the
environment, with a global supply chain employing 58 million people
worldwide. During the period of 2000–14, clothing production increased by
50 per cent, as fast-fashion evolved and the luxury sector ascended.
Recently, a number of high-profile fashion designers are taking the
decision to consciously depart from the constraints of the seasonal fashion
calendar, enabling them to reconnect with the creative process, focusing on
quality and customer experience. ‘With fashion there is too much fear, not
enough time, and not enough love’ (Elbaz 2017). While sustainable fashion
has often been considered a consumer-led movement, which brands have been
pressured to act upon, it is important that businesses demonstrate social
responsibility through a collaborative approach incorporating design,
innovation, technology and communication to successfully create desirable
sustainable products with integrity. With constant news updates as a result
of technology and the overriding competitiveness of social media, brands
need to design and launch unique products that attract attention. This
article will explore the connection between sustainable design and brand
identity in relation to the fashion industry. The article will identify
economic and commercial business opportunities, incorporating how combining
sustainable design principles with communicative story telling provides
additional emotional value for both designer and consumer, and aligning
brands with social and environmental issues that are directly related to
the products they are selling.

*Micro and macro approaches to sustainability in fashion and design*

Authors: Dian-Jen Lin
Page Start: 19

What is sustainability? How do we define and approach sustainable
practices? How is sustainability perceived in the context of fashion? In
the current fashion industry, terms like ‘organic’ or ‘recycled’ materials
are often referred to as indicators for sustainable practices. However, is
this the future of sustainability in fashion? If we take one step back from
the fashion world and look at how sustainable practices are pursued in
other contexts, we can easily discover a blind spot that is hardly
mentioned or attempted in the fashion context.

*Reducing textile waste in the apparel industry: Examining EPR as an option*

Authors: Kelly Burton
Page Start: 33

Incredible amounts of raw materials and environmental inputs are being used
in an industry that has grown 60 per cent in the past fifteen years. The
global clothing and apparel industry has streamlined supply chains and is
working on sustainable initiatives to limit resource scarcity, but what is
missing in the system is resource recovery for post-consumer textile waste.
Although almost all textiles are reusable or recyclable, the vast majority
(85 per cent) end up in landfills. By not being circular, the fashion
industry is losing half a trillion dollars in underutilization and resource
value annually. With consumers in large developing countries like Brazil,
China, India, Mexico and Russia adopting current consumption rates, the
system and its waste are expected to increase. The apparel industry needs
to become circular and to adopt policies to reduce textile waste.

*Predicting consumer intention to purchase clothing products made from
sustainable fabrics: Implications for the fast-fashion industry*

Authors: Jeong-Ju Yoo And Lorynn Divita And Hye-Young Kim
Page Start: 47

The goal of this study is to investigate the differential influences of
environmental concern and fashion opinion leadership on consumer intention
to purchase clothing products made from sustainable fabrics. In doing so,
this study examines the mediating role of environmental attitude towards
clothing consumption. The data were collected from 122 US college students
with an average age of 21.4. The majority of the participants were female
(83.6 per cent) and Caucasian (64.5 per cent). A weighted least squares
(WLS) hierarchical regression analysis was used for the data analysis. The
results suggested that fashion opinion leadership was a more powerful
determinant than environmental concern in predicting consumer intention to
purchase clothing products made from sustainable fabrics. However,
environmental attitude towards clothing consumption did not serve as a
significant mediator. These findings provide beneficial insight for
fast-fashion retailers mainly targeting fashion opinion leaders. Managerial
implications are discussed to delineate how fast-fashion retailers can
benefit from sustainable production and retailing strategies.

*Re-fashioning the garment industry: Exploring innovations for a circular
economy*

Authors: Talia Hussain
Page Start: 61

The circular economy is promoted as an innovation and growth model for a
garment industry widely understood to be wasteful, polluting and ripe for
change. There is a growing body of knowledge related to sustainability,
design, eco-innovation and business; there is, however, a scarcity of
material that examines all subjects as they relate to the garment industry.
There exists, in both literature and practice, a conceptual gap between the
commercial viewpoint and established thinking around sustainable practices.
There is a lack of research investigating operations management, buying and
merchandising roles in apparel product development. Understanding the
influence of these functional roles is crucial in developing strategies for
closing the gap between commercial and environmentally sustainable
practices and bringing innovations to market. Investment in
sustainability-related knowledge and capabilities within firms is needed.
Reconsidering the role of fashion designers, expanding their training and
elevating them to process-leading problem-solvers could unlock new sources
of value within the industry.

*Perceived class mobility and veiled stratification of contemporary
fashion: A comparison with proletariat and bourgeois class structure in the
nineteenth century*

Authors: Hana Cha
Page Start: 87

It is important to bear in mind as to what extent this distinction exists,
or whether we can confidently say it does not exist at all. As a matter of
fact, we find that with higher income, individuals spend more of their
capital income on clothing. There is still an intangible class division and
stratification on the street, even though it is representative. Therefore,
it is important to examine the historical role played by clothing as a
symbol or a form of self-expression within the social hierarchy, and to
identify its antithetic aspects during post-industrial Britain and France,
and from the twentieth century to present day. In this article, the
principal plan is to outline the contrast between the past and the present
examining two antithetic aspects of clothing within the social structure
for those periods; the first era is post-Industrial Revolution in Britain
and France. The intention is to explain the intensive opposition between
the bourgeois, which represents the upper class, and the proletariat, which
is the lower class in the mid-eighteenth century to the end of nineteenth
century. The second period is the twentieth century to the present and
democracy and equilibrium in fashion will be examined. Finally, class
mobility through ether existing hierarchy or reduced representation (i.e.
ambivalence to Democracy in fashion) as the main debate of multifaceted
stratification in fashion will be elaborated and the class boundaries are
increasingly blurred, yet whether we accept it or not, class distinctions
still exist.

*Guardian: Made in Cambodia: Experimental textile design responding to
Cambodian factory conditions, unionism and the phenomenon of Neak Ta
possession*

Authors: Cynden Adams And Guy Keulemans
Page Start: 97

Guardian: Made in Cambodia is an ethical textiles project undertaken in
response to the low-income and hazardous working conditions of garment
factory workers in Cambodia. The project critically designs a range of
garments that acknowledge and raise awareness of cultural manifestations of
unionism in Cambodia, specifically the Neak Ta phenomenon. The garments are
speculatively imagined as capable of ethical production by a small
community of workers from Cambodia’s garment factories in order to
(capacitate) provide a mode of production and sustainable source of income
alternative to industrial factory employment. The Neak Ta phenomenon refers
to mass fainting associated with land guardian spirits unique to Cambodian
Animist belief. The phenomenon is regarded as a culturally appropriate form
of rebellion occurring in a country where unionism is discouraged and
labour protests can become violent. Guardian: Made in Cambodia applies a
methodology of experimental material and processes research through
textile-focused studio practice, as a means to better understand the
conditions of Cambodian garment workers and the Neak Ta phenomenon. This
process corresponds to a critical design approach that engages with the
topic interrogatively through experimental making, in order to challenge
paradigms of design and production. The resulting textile and apparel
products visualize the repetitive piecework of garment factory work and the
disruption caused to it by the Neak Ta phenomenon. Open and closed seams,
darts and hems recall the repetitive qualities of piecework labour,
disrupted by dark-toned natural dyeing techniques intended to capture and
convey expressions of fainting and possession.

*Learning to weave for the luxury Indian and global fashion industries: The
Handloom School, Maheshwar*

Authors: Ruth Clifford
Page Start: 111

This article will draw upon ongoing research into design and business
education for traditional artisans in India. It will focus specifically on
the use of traditional crafts in the luxury Indian fashion industry, which
has grown significantly in the last three decades, alongside one of the
Ph.D. case studies – The Handloom School (THS) in Maheshwar, a small
sari-weaving town in Madhya Pradesh state. The charitable organization
WomenWeave was founded by Sally Holkar in 2003 to generate sustainable
employment for women in Maheshwar and the surrounding region. While
Maheshwar is known for its silk, cotton and zari (metallic yarn) fabrics
and saris, WomenWeave started producing khadi (hand-spun, hand-woven yarn),
which has been popular in high-end Indian and global fashion markets. THS
is a recent initiative of WomenWeave, and teaches weavers from different
parts of India business, design, IT and communication skills with a view to
enabling them to start their own businesses and generate more sustainable
livelihoods in their respective regions. Students also learn new weaving
skills and multi-treddle techniques, and are encouraged to weave fabrics
with more complex textures, patterns and colours than what they are used
to, based on WomenWeave’s success with such fabrics. The school is in its
early stages and the curriculum is continuously being revised and adapted.
My recent ethnographic fieldwork in Maheshwar and other weaving regions in
India has involved learning about the experiences of some of the students
and graduates of THS, as well as the faculty, directors and administrative
staff, over the past three years. This article will draw upon these
experiences, while presenting some of the challenges the school is facing
amidst a broad and lively debate on craft in India within the development,
anthropological, design history and material culture discourses. I will
address a number of questions such as: how can traditional craft meet the
needs of the high-end fashion industry? How is education impacting
‘artisan’ and ‘designer’ collaborations and challenging the definition of
these roles? Who owns traditional and other designs, and whose identity is
expressed in the final product? It also explores how weavers are combining
their traditional weaving skills gained in the home, along with
institutionalized learning of business and design concepts; and to what
extent education enables weavers to create products attuned to a
contemporary market.

*Wardrobe Hack and Uncatwalk: Design interventions to encourage more
fulfilling relationships with our clothing*

Authors: Jennifer Whitty
Page Start: 131

Fashion is now fast and disposable. The current product–service system for
fashion ensures that unwanted items are quickly abandoned in favour of the
next shiny new thing. Leaving little time or motivation for consumers to
engage, appreciate and articulate oneself through fashion. This activity is
destroying the value of clothing both figuratively and literally and is
having a huge negative impact on people and planet. This research asks can
designers create systems and services that improve and extend the use phase
of the person–product relationship and ensure ongoing contentment and
fulfilment for the user? The practice-led research projects, Wardrobe Hack
and Uncatwalk, encourage everyday user autonomy of clothing from the site
of their fashion experience, their own wardrobe. The aim of these projects
is to enable the development of alternate ecologies of practice or
behaviour for fashion users in the use phase of a garment’s life in order
to encourage more fulfilling relationships with clothing to address the
environmental impact of overconsumption. This practice-based fashion
research project and its associated design intervention occur during the
‘use’ phase of clothing. This is a means of encouraging more sustainable
consumer activity through longer-term consideration and connectivity with
existing clothing. This is an under-researched stage of the conventional
person-product-service relationship, and can be a means of encouraging more
sustainable consumer activity.. This is achieved by exploring the viability
and potential of a Wardrobe Hack service or courses of actions that enable
‘wearers’ to share their everyday practices, build competencies and create
a space for sustainable fashion product–services and practices to emerge.
This research builds on Fletcher’s work in the Local Wisdom (2013) project,
exploring the emerging field of enriching the fashion user experience in
the post-production and post-retail environment. It seeks to create a
better integration of clothing and material culture in our lives by
proposing alternative roles for designers and consumer to design services
for longevity of use practices. These models demonstrate how digital and
social media can provide a vehicle for fashion designers to facilitate
participatory experiences amongst fashion users. Future research requires a
longitudinal study to evaluate the impact from the consumer’s perspective.

*Communicating sustainability: Curating the ‘Making it Real’ installation,
Trinity Leeds*

Authors: Natalie C. McCreesh And Christopher R. Jones And Alex McIntosh And
Helen Storey
Page Start: 153

With growing drives towards greater sustainability within the retail sector
and growing requirement to conform to existing and emerging legislation,
companies from ostensibly disparate sectors face the common challenge of
encouraging the reduced consumption of saleable products, while
simultaneously maintaining financial prosperity. Initially focused on
knowledge exchange between the energy and water utilities and fashion
retailers, TRANSFER (Trading Approaches to Nurturing Sustainable
consumption in Fashion and Energy Retail) is now working together with a
diverse group of large and SME (small- and medium-sized enterprises)
retailers from a number of sectors, with the aim of successfully addressing
this paradox. Combining the experiences of our commercial partners with
academic expertise from a team of psychologists, fashion and management
experts from the University of Sheffield and University of the Arts,
London, TRANSFER is also investigating how efforts to promote sustainable
consumption within retail are received and responded to by consumers. In
fulfilling the project aims we hope to foster a more complete understanding
of how retail sector initiatives can be successfully designed and
implemented in order to have a positive impact on both retailers and their
customers. This article provides a summary of the TRANSFER ‘Making it Real’
installation, held at Trinity Leeds shopping centre, (February 2015). This
innovative, interactive exhibition was conceived of and developed upon the
basis of discussions held with TRANSFER partners at a commercial partner
workshop held in April 2014. TRANSFER is a knowledge exchange project
funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Retail Sector
Initiative 2013 (ES/L005204/1).

*Brand interview and case study: Davy J sustainable swimwear*

Authors: Debbie Moorhouse And Helen Newcombe
Page Start: 163

*Case study: Swat Valley Guild peace-building initiative and Artisan
enterprise for community empowerment and sustainable development*

Authors: Zulfiqar Deo
Page Start: 167

The Swat Valley Guild (SVG) is engaging local artisans in the Swat Valley
region of Northern Pakistan with the global fashion community. The local
artisan heritage is centuries old and is under threat from conflict,
climate change and industrialization. The SVG is organizing a
demand-centric approach, which allows the artisans to engage with the
global community and ensures it solves some key challenges of the fashion
industry as well, focusing on waste, sustainability and people development.
There is a unique form of embroidery (Panjara) indigenous to the Swat
Valley being preserved by this project. Artisans from the Guild are
changing the face of the fashion industry. The local artisan ecosystems
allow for flexible bespoke production, enabling the fashion industry to
solve some of its key challenges. These being waste, pollution and people
insensitivity. Fashion as a discipline helps the individual to find
him/herself through self-expression. It supports new and original form,
which in time finds its function. When the founders of the SVG first
decided to set up the Guild in 2016 in the Swat Valley Region, Northern
Pakistan, they had to decide how to position this high social impact
business in the open market to support the fashion industry with its key
challenges. They felt the openness, innovativeness and the global presence
of the fashion industry would be the best place to start.

*Mahatma Gandhi and the model of fashion education, activism and system(s)
in India*

Authors: Asit Bhatt
Page Start: 177

Prominent fashion educators, namely Lidewij Edelkoort and Jose Teunissen,
have time and again pointed towards the crisis of a fast-fashion system
marked by the rapid and excessive production–consumption patterns that
manifest a throwaway society within the vast cultural wastelands. As
Edelkoort has pointed out in her manifesto ‘Anti_Fashion’ (2015), it may
sound quite ironic but we still educate our young people to become catwalk
designers and unique individuals. However, our society demands exchange,
new economy and working together in teams as well as groups. Pedagogy, in
this precise sense apropos to the fast-fashion system, is indeed based upon
a flat ontological ground or singular identity, which resembles a vast
agricultural field protected by the scarecrow in order to harvest only a
particular type of crop. What is required is a type of wilderness – an
ecosystem; an interdependent as well as symbiotic relationship among the
heterogeneous groups of individuals to realize life’s capacity to flourish
and maximize its true potential. Here, the question is this: in what ways
does fashion education play an active role in inculcating the values of
cooperative, collaborative, correlative and collective modes of
production–consumption within contemporary fashion system(s)? This article
argues that the Gandhian model has great potential in articulating
possibilities that are quite timely and crucial in relation to the present
discourse on fashion system(s). The Gandhian model encompasses Mahatma
Gandhi’s idea of ecology, work, crafts, education and fashion. The article
suggests that the Gandhian model is subversive in nature and does inculcate
the values of cooperative, collaborative, correlative and collective modes
of production–consumption whilst facilitating a spirit of activism in order
to imagine fashion outside the purview of industrial and post-industrial
capitalism. Here, the dialectics of the life (praxis) versus mechanization
(techne) appear to be an obvious trap, which the article avoids by
developing a kind of dialogical framework – a relationship to the
environment quite radically different than that of humanism and
anthropocentrism.

*Designing a sustainable future through fashion education*

Authors: Natascha Radclyffe-Thomas
Page Start: 183

With production moving offshore in the race to the bottom, necessary to
satisfy increased demand for more garments and faster trends delivered at
lower prices, fashion in the developed world has become not just fast, but
disposable. One of the ‘successes’ of the twentieth-century fashion
industry was to democratize fashion; by adopting mass production techniques
and sourcing from low-wage economies, fashion retailers were able to
produce runway looks at more affordable prices. Concurrently, developments
in fashion media sped up the communication of fashion and we have seen an
exponential proliferation of enticing creative imagery circulating from
brands, models, online influencers and passionate amateurs. Consequently,
rates of fashion consumption have risen, unacceptable working conditions
continue for many, and the fashion industry is facing complex and demanding
challenges including resources, climate change, waste, labour conditions
and income inequality. Much as we now understand how garment design has an
exponential impact on a garment’s sustainability, and recognize that
incorporating sustainable design principles is paramount, so those of us in
fashion education should prioritize sustainability in our curriculum design
and increasingly, I have felt a responsibility to bring these issues into
the classroom, to design a fashion education that acknowledges and
addresses ethical and sustainable aspects of fashion.

*Working in half-scale for economy, efficiency and environmental
sustainability*

Authors: Jema Hewitt
Page Start: 189

I made a conscious decision when starting my MA in creative pattern cutting
to work in half-scale. Initially, I just wanted freedom to explore a wide
variety of techniques quickly, effectively and without spending a fortune
on fabrics that, in all probability, would just be disposed of afterwards.
But, through my journey, I discovered so much more to this way of working.

*Industry insight: Conscious consumption*

Authors:  Ophelia Schultz-Clark
Page Start: 193

These days, purchasing almost anything can be a veritable minefield: are
these carrots organic? Is my eyeliner cruelty free? Can I afford to pay a
little extra for a plant-based washing up liquid? The struggle is more than
real – it is necessary. It shows that we are engaging with the all-too real
problem of global warming, rather than burying our heads in the sand. For
this reason, it is important we keep the environment in mind when we are
making everyday choices, such as in our clothing. Whether you are a
consumer, designer or manufacturer, it is important to include waste
reduction in the goals of your efforts in the fashion industry. In this
article, I will be sharing my views on why you should make the switch from
mainstream to sustainable fashion and telling you a little bit about our
brand, Madia & Matilda.

*Can our clothes impact our well-being?*

Authors:  Zoë Olivia John
Page Start: 197

We have all been there: we put on an outfit, one we wore the previous week
or previous day, and it just does not feel right. You look in the mirror
and it does not work, the computer inside your head screams out: ‘YOUR
IDENTITY HAS BEEN COMPROMISED’. As silly as this may seem, it is a familiar
– and well-documented – story; we dress ourselves to reflect how we want to
be perceived (Woodward 2007) and to reflect our identity. This might change
on a daily basis: we might be cool and casual on a Monday and sharp as a
point on Tuesday, but research shows wearing something that does not
reflect how you feel can actually have a negative impact on your sense of
well-being.

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