Sustainable fashion design practice in the studio-based classroom

Today’s prevailing fashion industry system has become extraordinarily polluting and wasteful. Many have already criticized the considerable waste generated during the current manufacturing process. Fashion practitioners have also proposed plenty of modest attempts. However, as one of the most vital aspects supporting the current industry paradigm, fashion design education must take its sustainable responsibilities thoroughly. Few studies investigate ways to implement sustainability practices in classroom teaching, and literature about creating an unfettered environment for fashion design students to come up with solutions is still relatively rare. With the increasing awareness of environmental issues, fashion design education has reached its curving point. Many researchers have addressed the necessity for an alternative teaching and learning approach in fashion education. How to bridge the gap between values and collaborations, academic practices, and industrial expectations is a paradigm-shifting question to be responded to. In this paper, the authors have set out their experience conducting an innovative sustainable fashion design workshop in the studio-based classroom by outlining the holistic teaching and learning process and proposing critical questions and reflections around pedagogy and projects. The authors wish to provide a reflective example for further discussions around new pedagogical norms, which might generate the collective evolution of a new curriculum to educate future designers to contribute to the sustainable fashion industry.