Abstract
Sustainability is a principal research domain and part of the DNA of the European Project Semester at the Faculty of Design Sciences at the University of Antwerp. This chapter describes how a multidisciplinary EPS team collaborated to design an interactive event, exhibit, and campaign to promote sustainable consumer behavior on a fair at the city campus of the university, with a focus on awareness-raising about fast versus slow fashion. Throughout all development stages, the team improved their work-in-progress during weekly coaching sessions with access to the sustainability-related research group and toolkits. This rich trajectory and the resulting fast/slow fashion fair triggered deep reflections on the team regarding fair fashion as well as taught them to plan a major event with many stakeholders, eco-design for the outdoors, and proactively communicate and develop their public relations and negotiation skills. It also raised awareness about the sustainable fashion cause among the students, staff, and the general public who visited the fair.
TopProblem Definition
First, this section describes the general problems of fast fashion and its environmental and societal costs. Second, an explanation is given about how our EPS project seeks to address these broad and complex problems, namely by raising awareness about the hidden costs of fast fashion.
The Dark Side of Fast Fashion and the Apparel’s Industry
High streets showcase the ability of the apparel’s industry and marketing strategies to increase the incidence of unplanned, impulsive purchasing by customers, who are seduced and overstimulated by a wide range of clothes, shoes and accessories to choose from at affordable till very low prices.
However, this affordable price comes with severe and secretive hidden social and environmental costs, often not well-known to the general public in the shopping malls. Few consider the long supply chain of the garments’ life cycles, starting with the harvesting of cotton or other raw material, to the manufacturing of fabric, the assembly of clothes, to their sales, their repurposing and resale. The transport of apparel around the world creates significant environmental damage because it is mostly done via commercial shipping, one of the highest carbon-emission-intensive modes of transportation. In addition, garment conglomerates have to respond more frequently to charges on issues ranging from exploitative (child) labor practices, to perpetuating global poverty by fighting against wage increases in developing nations, to pursuing an unethical marketing strategy of promoting the overconsumption of cheap, readily disposable clothes, referred to as fast fashion (Bhardwaj & Fairhurst, 2010; Birnbaum, 2008) and thus contributing to high levels of industrial waste (Anguelov, 2016; Diebäcker, 2000; Nimon & Behghin, 1999; Rosenthal, 2007). The process of externalizing the social costs of textiles and clothes and outsourcing the polluting production processes to poorer countries is a result of direct cost-minimization initiatives (Anguelov, 2016). However, it is not only a consequence of direct cost-minimizing initiatives at the firm level, but also of government actions such as industrial recruitment policies that aim to attract businesses in order to help developing nations improve their economies. In addition, the increase in volume of Western second-hand clothes exports to developing nations, which accompanies the increase in fast fashion purchases, threatens the development of local apparel sectors. It also results in a disproportionately large volume of used clothes being finally disposed of in developing nations, where there are few, if any, regulatory standards in waste management (Ahmed & Ali, 2004; Henry et al., 2006; Thomas-Hope, 1998).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Trend-Driven: About isolating and decoding the underlying behaviors—even those that feel irrelevant, extreme, or a little out there—and understanding which has the potential to be used more extensively.
NGO: A non-profit organization that operates independently of any government, typically one whose purpose is to address a social or political issue.
Generation Y: The generation born in the 1980s and 1990s, comprising primarily the children of the baby boomers and typically perceived as increasingly familiar with digital and electronic technology.
Fast Fashion: Cheaply made clothes and accessories, often in a style that might be very trend-sensitive.
Sustainable Development: A development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, while acknowledging the necessary interconnection between the economic, social, and ecological dimensions for sustainable development.
Generation Z: The generation reaching adulthood in the second decade of the 21st century, perceived as being familiar with the internet from a very young age.
Slow Fashion: Refers to a deliberate choice for fewer and better-quality items, which are environmentally friendly, ethically conscious, and durable “ever-greens” rather than trend-driven. Transparency is offered about where slow fashion clothes are coming from and how they are made.
ECTS: Stands for European Credit Transfer System and is a method of measuring the study program as academic currency.
Event: A planned public or social occasion.