Sustainable Fashion Design Education: The Studio-based Approach

With the utterly linear ways of production, distribution, and consumption, today’s fashion industry has become the second most polluting industry globally. During the conventional garment production process, considerable offcut waste has been generated, which has led to a detrimental impact on the environment. How to minimize fabric waste during the design process has become an urgent requirement for fashion designers. Fashion practitioners have proposed plenty of sustainable examples. However, how to bring these practices into classroom teaching and create an unfettered environment for fashion design students to develop their own solutions is still a domain to be explored. Many practitioners and researchers have already addressed the necessity of evoking an alternative teaching and learning approach in sustainable fashion design education. In this article, the author sets out her cross-cultural experience of conducting a fashion design workshop, adopting the studio-based approach. By outlining the holistic teaching and learning process, proposing testing questions and critical reflections around pedagogy, activities, and projects, the author wishes to provide a reflective educational example on educating future designers as agents of in-depth change to contribute to the sustainable fashion industry.