Abstract:

Sustainability in Fashion Design is not a slogan for effect, rather it is connected to the themes of production, use, reuse, need of variety, slowing down the mechanisms of accumulation and consumption. The Fashion industry, characterized by products with very short life cycles, made in extremely dynamic and fragmented supply chains that access a complex supply chain of material (energy and raw materials) and immaterial (know-how, design, processing and communication) resources, is also called upon to integrate sustainability-related practices to counteract the environmental issues into its business models [1].

The contribution illustrates a didactic experimentation implemented on the themes previously exposed, by two courses of the three-year degree in Fashion Design, implemented in a coordinated way: Course of Materials and Technologies for Fashion Design and Laboratory of Fashion Design II, within which the principle of "Acted and student centred Learning" to develope soft skills was relevant.

The course syllabus is a schedule that is always ready to change. The teaching is designed following Bloom's Taxonomy [2]. Creative experimentation has led several groups of young future fashion designers to venture into the creation of capsule collections based on the upcycling strategy [3], with which to give continuity to the traditional outfits by analyzing the traditional craft textile manufactures and enhancing the intrinsic potential re-use. Moving around a transdisciplinary vision that connects different knowledges - such as fashion and contemporary art, textile manipulation, advanced production processes - the work produces circular fashion through the hybridization of natural materials (cotton, linen, hemp and silk), tailoring techniques (Deconstruction and sartorial reconstruction, Moulage, Patchwork, ...), in order to develop a creative and transdisciplinary proposal for the fashion design industry. The opportunity is provided by the Creative Europe Project, "FASHION ALIVE. Development of new audiences via innovative cultural and digital strategies to promote experimental sustainable fashion methods," which awarded the Vanvitelli University (Italy) and its partners CREAMODITE (Spain), UMINHO (Portugal). In teaching fields where both thinking and practice have a strong need to be constantly tested and challenged, it is important to educate on research and to make research part of teaching. Different disciplines integrate and systematize to drive toward an educational approach that, while working on the intellectual level and fostering critical thinking, always has a foot in the reality of practice. In fact, creative action does not end with the project. The final products will be presented to the public during 3 experimental fashion and art events of sustainable creations.

The study of traditional, high-performance and sustainable fabrics, combined with non-polluting processing and dyeing techniques, generates products that can give answers consistent with the Green Fashion process that can give the general public a message of sustainability through this kind of innovative design expressions.

References:
[1] Thorisdottir, T.S.; Johannsdottir, L. (2019) doi.10.3390/su11082233
[2] Tristantie N.; Syahril S.; Rambe A.; Juliarti J.; (2020) doi.10.4108/eai.16-11-2019.2293233
[3] Marques, A. D.; Moreira, B.; Cunha, J.; Moreira, S.; (2019) doi.10.1016/j.procir.2019.04.217

Keywords:

Bloom’s taxonomy, Student-centred Learning, soft skills, Circular Ecodesign, Sustainable Fashion.