My research (2009) shows that a lot of companies and designers that are working for a longer time in fashion said ‘no’ to the idea of incorporating eco-effective designing in their design process. One of the reasons they gave is being busy with following a fashion schedule; they have to show a collection every half a year (or even more). The designers do not have time to slow down and reinvent or even reflect on what they are doing. They have to continue the same way to make money. (Other reasons were: a lack of choices in materials, the materials are more expensive, do not know where to start)
In this case it is important to stop and think for a moment about what your purpose is of working this way. What is the greater goal? Think less competitive but more cooperative. What do people need? What do people want? From my point of view I would say: we need protection from the elements of nature, so we need clothes. We want our clothes to show our identity, so we want to change the way we look. This makes fashion a need. But do we have to own the garments? Do we have to use different materials all the time? Or can we reuse our materials?
In this case it is important to stop and think for a moment about what your purpose is of working this way. What is the greater goal? Think less competitive but more cooperative. What do people need? What do people want? From my point of view I would say: we need protection from the elements of nature, so we need clothes. We want our clothes to show our identity, so we want to change the way we look. This makes fashion a need. But do we have to own the garments? Do we have to use different materials all the time? Or can we reuse our materials?
At the same moment I also think it is the role of the designer to stimulate management and the buying department to create a different mindset, as the designers are the creative forces behind the brand and they see how society is developing and they have the skills to transform this into tangible items and systems. On their turn the brand can start influencing the production chain.
While I am writing this article multiple organizations (including Refinity) are looking on the possibility of an online Buyerspool where designers can order fabrics together in Europe. This cooperative ordering makes it possible for small companies to order small amounts fabrics, that normally start from minimum amounts of 500-1000 meters, for interesting prices and with shared transport.
In this case the designers share their material and transport resources, but their creativity makes them a strong and diverse group of individuals. Diversity is a very important aspect in nature, it makes the world resilient and that is what fashion needs too!
Sharing will become more important in the future. When an user is not the owner of a product anymore, but only uses the functionality as a service, a flow of materials will start to exist. Companies can take advantage of this by building a community of different companies that use the same materials. Working this way the materials only need to be harvested ones, because the next time you want to use them they come from the material-pool. Besides this the by-products from one production process can become ingredients for another companies core production.
Some nice examples:
Lease a jeans
Gro Holland
While I am writing this article multiple organizations (including Refinity) are looking on the possibility of an online Buyerspool where designers can order fabrics together in Europe. This cooperative ordering makes it possible for small companies to order small amounts fabrics, that normally start from minimum amounts of 500-1000 meters, for interesting prices and with shared transport.
In this case the designers share their material and transport resources, but their creativity makes them a strong and diverse group of individuals. Diversity is a very important aspect in nature, it makes the world resilient and that is what fashion needs too!
Sharing will become more important in the future. When an user is not the owner of a product anymore, but only uses the functionality as a service, a flow of materials will start to exist. Companies can take advantage of this by building a community of different companies that use the same materials. Working this way the materials only need to be harvested ones, because the next time you want to use them they come from the material-pool. Besides this the by-products from one production process can become ingredients for another companies core production.
Some nice examples:
Lease a jeans
Gro Holland
Make a closed-loop lifespan like nature does: The only thing nature imports in any appreciable amount is energy in the form of sunlight, and the only thing it exports is the by-product of its energy use, heat.[1]
It will be one of the company tasks to search for solutions on how to make circular systems of the current loose ends in our production chains. Working this way companies optimize existing product-service systems with long-term customer relations. Instead of increasing the production capacity as quickly as possible where the only profit is made by selling materials (hidden into products).
It will be one of the company tasks to search for solutions on how to make circular systems of the current loose ends in our production chains. Working this way companies optimize existing product-service systems with long-term customer relations. Instead of increasing the production capacity as quickly as possible where the only profit is made by selling materials (hidden into products).
[1] Janine M. Benyus, Biomimicry, Innovation Inspired by Nature, 1997, p255
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