Abstract:

Bruno Munari, Italian designer, when asked for a definition of the designer, used to say that designer “è un progettista dotato di senso estetico, che lavora per la comunità”, that means that a designer is a someone able to make project with an aesthetic sense, that works for the community. With this definition in mind we started the path that led us to make this project and to write this paper: looking at the fashion system, we can see how the daily debate concerns sustainability, both environmental and ethical.

If the purpose of the designer is it to work for the community, then which could have been our contribute in this discussion?
Movements like Fashion Revolution, green campaigns, are a daily thing. But researching and exploring this theme, we notice how scarce attention is reserved to who really represent the future, the consumer of tomorrow, Generation Z, and their education around the subject: changing can only starts from knowledge. Young adults started to rise their voice, protesting for their future, with the movement “Fridays for future”, showing interest around the subject, but asking a simpler way of communicating, closer to their habits, as emerged with a dialogue with them.

How, then, make them more aware of what they wear daily? How to make them conscious of the sources involved in the process of making a garment, and the journey that it makes to arrive in their closet?

Analysing, through history of fashion, the Italian manufacturing culture, studying traditional systems of care and maintenance of clothes, we tried to imagine a way of stress into the young consumer the will of care about the garment, creating almost an emotional tie with it.

Therefore, the aim of this paper is to promote a social behaviour change, through sustainability and thanks to the educational project “dare-to-care”, giving to the young consumer a better understanding about what they wear.

During the process of design project, our intention was to communicate important and serious issues, that concern sustainability in fashion, ethical and environmental, through a language that takes mood, colours and tone of voice from different instances. A mode that could be perceived as cool for young people today but the fashion consumers tomorrow, like an event, co-designed with a group of young student, an Instagram page with tutorials and tips, that can be daily in their life, to obtain a change of direction in fashion system, based on valorisation of the garment, thought as an object with an history and non-disposable.

Keywords:

Generation Z, co-design, fashion, learning model.