THE STUDIO-BASED APPROACH TO SUSTAINABLE FASHION: PRACTICES OF FASHION DESIGN STUDENTS IN THE INDIAN CLASSROOM

As one of the world's most important manufacturing hubs, India's sustainable fashion has been booming in recent years. The industry is towards a transformative agenda from a sourcing hub into a consumer-attractive market. As the future industry leaders, India's young fashion designers are requested to inherit the complexities of Indian tradition and crafts, incorporating sustainable solutions through their designs. Although fashion institutes have sprung up across the country in the past few years, the dissonance between fashion education and industry requests is still one of the most challenging obstacles to be surmounted in India. Keeping up the fashion curriculum with the instant change and flexibility expected from the fashion system remains one of the fundamental challenges for India's fashion education. Many researchers have addressed the necessity to evoke an alternative teaching and learning approach in fashion education. However, only a few studies investigate ways to implement sustainability practices in Indian classroom teaching. Literature about creating an unfettered environment for fashion students to develop solutions is still relatively rare. In this paper, the authors set out their experience teaching sustainable fashion in the Indian classroom, adopting the studio-based approach. By outlining the holistic teaching and learning processes, proposing testing questions, and critical reflections on pedagogy, activities, and projects, the authors wish to provide reflective examples for further discussions around new pedagogical norms, which might hopefully generate the collective evolution of new curricula to educate future designers to contribute to the sustainable fashion industry.