Abstract:

The fashion industry produces significant environmental impacts. It is imperative to carefully examine each stage of the fashion product life cycle, from conception through production and marketing to recycling, in order to identify and implement meaningful interventions that make all the intricate operations that characterize the fashion industry truly sustainable. Awareness of the influence of the entire system on the health of our planet underscores the importance of taking concrete and innovative measures to ensure that fashion is not only an expression of style, but also an industry actively engaged in promoting environmental sustainability.

The paper illustrates the results of a teaching experiment conducted in a coordinated manner by the two courses of Materials and Technologies for Fashion Design and the Fashion Design II Laboratory, of the three-year Fashion Design Degree Program.

The teaching experiment is developed in this academic year in direct continuity with the previous academic year. Bloom's taxonomy remains the model on which the structure of the course is based: Recall, Understand, Apply, Experiment, Analyze, Evaluate and Create, and given the excellent results obtained, it was decided to expand the field of experimentation by introducing, in the area of creative upcycling, the use of leather and sustainable printing techniques, including Greenprinting.

The collaboration between the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli and the Lineapelle Association has created an opportunity aimed at fostering knowledge exchange and promoting a synergy between education, research and industry. This collaboration focuses on innovation, adopting a low-impact ecological approach and focusing on the creation of advanced material scenarios. The design of textures and patterns formed by the combination of organic or geometric shapes and colour obtained from the use of plant materials (leaves, flowers, fruit...) is one of the experiments in which the students experimented with the Greenprinting technique documented in the phases and results.

The educational action is part of the research project "CONSCIOUS LEATHER +_ Fashion Alive 2_ MUTATION," which develops key concepts such as: simple living, inclusion, environment, consumer awareness, self-production, slow fashion and manufacturing and is based on the imperatives of Fashion Contemporary, intended for all genders, all ages, all body shapes, all cultures, all real personalities, all consumer categories.

Students are therefore stimulated to develop creative thinking that takes into account all the implications generated by the design process and the impact, which it has and can have in terms of virtuous spillovers.
In the context of integration and inclusion, the recovery and modernization of artifacts that affect local economies and the preservation and transmission of traditions, quality and durability as a value, the educational goal is to form and consolidate a new environmental awareness. This implies not only acquiring techniques that foster sustainable innovation, but also promoting an approach that values the preservation of traditions, quality craftsmanship and durability, thus countering the culture of fast and irrational consumption.
Fashion, more than other industries, can be functional in this sense as a means of representing the many and varied individualities that, as such, need to express themselves.

Keywords:

Learning by doing, Creative upcycling, Greenprinting, Inclusion, Technological fashion design.