Ecoclo provides a one-stop solution for sustainable fashion, aimed at addressing environmental concerns across all phases of the fashion supply, from design to production, distribution, and recycling. Targeting both consumers and fashion designers, users can choose to design, customize, and purchase their unique and sustainable fashion, and recycle it when they no longer need it, promoting a circular economy and sustainability in the fashion industry.
While working on this project, I adhered to the following design process:
The first step I took to design this project was conducting background research to acquire an in-depth understanding of the theme. I need to study the current trends and economic developments in the fast fashion industry to lay the foundation for the project.
Nowadays, Fast fashion has grown dramatically in recent years due to factors such as variety, agility, affordability, and mass production.
With the rapid growth of fast fashion, the global apparel retail industry has also increased. In 2017, total global revenues reached $1,414.1bn, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.4% from 2013 to 2017 (Global Apparel Retail, 2018). Fast fashion retailers such as UNIQLO and H&M have experienced rising sales in retail.
Although fast fashion industry has achieved spectacular success in business and economic aspect,
it has also resulted in major environmental challenges.
Supply chain in fashion industry contain 5 key phases, namely design, fabric &garment production, distribution & retail, use and disposal (Gwilt, 2014). Each stage of a garment's lifecycle contributes to different environmental problems, such as water & energy consumption, chemical pollution, and CO2 emissions in transportation etc.
Taking textile waste as an example, materials not only are likely consumed during manufacturing, but also are waste in end-of-life phase. In Cuc & Tripa's view, “the consumption growth has implications both in terms of increased textile waste flows and in terms of the environmental impacts related with production, use and end-of-life management of textiles. (2014)” Specifically, the European Commission report that European consumers throw away approximately 5.8 million tonnes of textiles every year, but merely 26% is being recycled (Bukhari & Mohammad, et al., 2018).
Consequently, the current fashion system and its entire value chain negatively impact today’s ecological crisis, then compromising both environmental and human well-being. As stated above, these reasons given me a strong motivation to design a sustainable fashion project.
After having a thorough understanding of the problem space, I continued my research into potential approaches being taken to address the issue of sustainable fashion.
Sustainability is defined as the ability of satisfying the demands of current generations needs while also considering the needs of future generations and protecting the environment. (Purvis, et al. 2018)
Fashion design encompasses the entire scope of design, production, environmental impact, and ethical considerations. (Farley, Gordon, & Jennifer et al, 2018)
It is promising to see that individuals, as well as fast fashion companies, are making efforts to promote sustainable fashion.
Globally, 64% participants regard themselves as supportive of sustainable fashion.
Shanghai ranks the top of supportive, recorded at 90%, followed by Hong Kong, say 71% . New York, London and Tokyo shows similar pattern, occupied 55%, 54% and 49% respectively.
The vast majority of them are concerned about sustainable development.
UNIQLO strives to take strong responsibility to lead the sustainable development of society through its clothing business. To this end, UNIQLO operates the Ariake Project to minimize waste and only produce what is necessary (2019).
H&M offers a system called trade-in & take-back to allow consumers deposit their clothing in a collection box located inside their stores, then acquire a discount voucher to use when they are shopping.
I identified the primary users as consumers who seek to customize and purchase sustainable clothing. The secondary users are fashion designers who aim to contribute positively to the environment by promoting sustainable fashion.
“If I can customize eco-friendly clothes to suit my taste, I'll wear them more often and reduce waste. Plus, I need an easy way to recycle them when they're worn out."
Consumers need to customize and purchase stylish and sustainable clothing, along with a simple process for recycling garments when they are no longer needed.
“I’m looking for a platform to design my garment templates for promoting sustainable fashion, market them effectively to attract customers, and get payment for my creations.”
Fashion designers need to design and upload garment templates, subsequently showcasing and selling them to receive fair compensation.
In order to inform my design decisions, I looked into precedents and existing technologies in the field of sustainable fashion. I would like to outline a few of these examples that I found particularly inspiring.
In this phase, a variety of fabrics, materials and techniques are being utilized and contributed to minimum environmental degradation, such as
Piñatex® is an innovative eco-friendly textile made from the fibers of the leaves of the pineapple plant. (by Ananas Anam)
Tencel™ (also known as lyocell) is made from cellulose fibers derived from sustainably sourced wood pulp.
In the second phase, sample-making and manufacturing, fashion designers adopt sustainable measures to consider the impact of garment production on the environment, such as
The journey map illustrates the seamless process of browsing, customizing, purchasing, using, and recycling sustainable clothing, enhancing their eco-conscious lifestyle.
The journey map illustrates the workflow of creating, uploading, and marketing sustainable garment templates, earning income from sales, and incorporating recycled materials into new designs.
This App design attempts to tackle environmental issues in different phases of the fashion supply chain.
Although I initially intend to create a online platform that provides an extra option for designer and wearer to make, customize, purchase and recycle sustainable fashion, this proposal possibly influence, change and and redefine supply chain of fashion industry. According to feedbacks, there are 2 aspects I should think about in the future:
AR Fitting Room by Unity & Vuforia
