Challenging Excessive Fashion Consumption by Fostering Skill-Based Fashion Education

摘要

Academic arguments that fashion consumption habits need to change in order to support a more sustainable future are well established.This work explores a participatory design dress making methodology as a vehicle to trigger positive change in younger fashion consumers and help stem an attraction to fast fashion products.A key outcome of the study is that engagement in garment design and construction invoked an apparent pos-itive emotional attachment not typically evident in fast fashion purchases.Participants demonstrated positive attitudes towards sustainability,along-side an awareness of the negative impact of fashion waste.However,at a relatively young age their evolving consumer habits show them to be drawn into the social drivers that are inherent in the idea of fast fashion.The perceived value of the work is the willingness of the students to participate.The apparent satisfaction they felt in their achievements and most significantly,their enthusiasm to continue with making.If this same enthusiasm could be captured in a new imagining of fashion and retailing the values of quality,longevity and individuality can remerge as the fash-ion ideal.