MDes Textiles with Business Studies: level two project
Sustainability as a Way of Thinking
'It becomes part of the way they think, the same way as they think about designing in a colour range'
This unit of study is part of a wider fashion degree in which considerations of ethics, social justice and ecological factors are as automatic as other considerations such as colour range or customer profile. In this degree programme, sustainable development is not introduced as a separate topic, and in fact, the words 'sustainable development' are not used. Rather, the values of sustainable development are drip fed into the discussions for the students to pit against other priorities such as emerging trends and marketability. For example, when discussing the pros and cons of different fibres, questions about their entire life cycle and their social and environmental impacts are always part of the debate.
More: Considering the whole life cycle
Peer-to-Peer Learning
'I learn a little bit from them and they learn a little bit from me and we all just kind of build up what we know about it'
'A lot of it's finding out and facilitating their finding out and throwing in encouragement, it often seems to work'
External Events
The lecturer makes an effort to alert students to external events that are tackling similar issues, for example those run by Fashioning an Ethical Industry. This raises their awareness of the progress of ethical fashion in the professional context, and can provide inspiration for them to support this movement towards a more sustainable fashion industry.
External Speakers
'the wider range of people that come in the better because I think [the students] have an over simplistic idea of what it is all about'
Professionals who are working on the ethical fashion front are invited to come and speak to the students, providing examples and role models of change agents and an insight into how change is taking place within the fashion industry. A lady from GAP came to talk to students from this course about their new policies on sourcing factories for the making of their clothes, demonstrating to the students that change is really happening and providing an example of the types of roles that can be taken within the fashion industry in order to support the shift towards sustainability.
Level two project: Making Fairtrade Clothing Marketable
This project provides an opportunity for students to get involved in a real-life international fair trade project, enabling them to become agents of change whilst learning at the same time. The project researches emerging trends in the developed world and communicates these trends to textile workers in Latin American countries. They do this in the form of a regular visual newsletter, helping the workers to produce clothes that will be marketable to high street stores and appropriate to the body shapes of Europeans.
More audio
Textile exploration: an example activity
Interviewee: Toni Hicks, Senior Lecturer, School of Architecture and Design