International Journal of Textile and

Fashion Technology (IJTFT)

ISSN (P): 2250-2378; ISSN (E): 2319-4510
Vol. 7, Issue 6, Dec 2017, 5-14
© TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.

PROSPECTS OF SUSTAINABLE FASHION DESIGN INNOVATION

RAJEEV KUMAR
Lecturer, Department of Fashion Designing, Jayoti Vidyapeeth Women’s University, Jaipur, India
ABSTRACT

Fashion design leads toward a broader field rapidly with the contemporary socio-economic, political, and
cultural diversity under the “people-oriented” principle. Modern fashion design integrated multi-angle, multi-paradigm.
The multi aspect stands of severing to meet people’s multi-angle, multi-paradigm. The multi aspect stands of severing to
meet people’s mental, physical, social and spiritual life. It opens up a new vision for modern fashion frontier and will be
bound to the clothing design practice. The juncture of science and technology are undeniably having a profound effect on
the fashion industry. The sustainable innovation in fashion is challenging in society, at the moment environmental
apparel design and new positive system is needed for innovative designed to achieve sustainable fashion and eco-friendly
materials. Textile ecology and eco-friendly material itself gives positive externalities to the society and not possesses any
type of pollution to environment during the production of the garments. Green natural fiber, green regenerated fiber
ecological organic cotton, bamboo fiber, color natural silk, soybean fiber, milk fiber, corn fiber and recycle fiber is the key

Original Article
sources of ecological garments. It is nontoxic to human body, but also is sociable in environment and beneficial to
human. New synthetic high-tech materials emerge at a historic moment which has the environment protection and
corresponds with consumption needs. These new materials make up the shortcomings of the traditional green fiber in
function and make the clothing more comfortable, breathable.

KEYWORDS: Sustainable Innovation, Eco-friendly, Externalities & Spiritual Life

Received: Sep 23, 2017; Accepted: Oct 12, 2017; Published: Oct 31, 2017; Paper Id.: IJTFTDEC20172

INTRODUCTION

Foods and non food items two important factor are necessary for human life. Cloths play vital role in non
food items because it shows human behavior and image of human as well as physical from which is the most put up
the shutters to human body. It used for covering, protecting and even decorating yourself. Every person must be
having different types of clothes for different occasions like your casual attire, office wear, party dresses, and your
night suit and so on. Its progress begin with the civilization and continued sustain yet. People every time demanded
clothing for direct reflection and spiritual needs of human beings. This essentially determines the nature of fashion
design based on “people-oriented” and the complete progressive tendency. Although the social material continuous
abundance, it seems that the higher requirements of material and spiritual of clothing for human and more difficult
to meet. This situate forward higher request to designers who have entered or will enter the garment industry.
There is no doubt that people need to think deeply about future path of fashion design but modern fashion
continuously diversify with the cultural economy and politics based on the essence of clothing and blended with the
design concept of multi-angle, multi-paradigm. Eco-design is an important part of sustainable supply chains.
With the increasing awareness of sustainability, eco-design has been a significant trend in the fashion industry.
Many fashion brands such as Nike, Adidas, and The North Face have developed sustainable fashion by encompass

www.tjprc.org editor@tjprc.org
6 Rajeev Kumar

eco-design elements. Fashion and textile is one of the most polluting industries in the world, every stage of the fashion and
textile supply chain threatens our planet and resources, approximately 20,000 liter of water are consumed to produce per kg
of cotton, many chemicals are used in manufacturing fabric for dyeing and finishing processes and production of one T-
shirt generated large amounts hazardous chemicals (C02). Consumers are aware regarding significance of sustainability and
are willing to purchase sustainable fashion products even though they are more expensive than conventional ones.

OBJECTIVE OF RESEARCH

The sustainable design strategies for fashion industry reduce the harmful effect of garment production.
The sustainable design strategies turn out to be a solution of environmental problem. The objective of this research is to
provide a solution of non-sustainability. In order to answer the main question, several subsidiary questions are formulated
for the structure of the research:

• What is sustainability and how to reflect fashion industry today?

• How does garment appear in lifecycle?

• What types sustainable design strategies?

• How sustainable design strategies do reflects to professional fashion industry?

When conducting research for these sub questions first, a solid research framework is provided to eventually formulate
an answer to the main research question.

• To comprehend the social, cultural and historical significance of fashion consumption in order to understand the
challenge of sustainable consumption development.

• To develop a sustainable consumption practice that reduces ‘fashion waste’.

• To evaluate the success of the clothing exchange as a fashion waste activation project and as an awareness raising
exercise.

• To identify consumption and production patterns in the fashion industry.

• To identify the four pillars in sustainability: cultural, economic, environmental, and social responsibility.

• To identify a variety of sustainable materials (textiles and other materials pertaining to garment construction).

• To identify sustainable design processes and compare with non-sustainable fashion collection.

• To makes a divergence between classical made fashion collection and a sustainable fashion collection.

Research Question and Purpose

The research question of this paper is defined as; “How innovative are fashion companies to become sustainable?”
In order to answer the question, the purpose is to make an evaluation among fashion companies by comparing them to each
other in terms of their sustainability and to make out how innovative they are when the topic is functioning
environmentally conscious. A mode of comparison, such as an index, can make the results of corporate social
responsibility (CSR) attempts clear, which could lead fashion producers to act accordingly while creating transparency for
consumers. The main focus of this research is on the environmental side of sustainability due to the incapability of

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.9864 NAAS Rating: 2.94

Prospects of Sustainable Fashion Design Innovation 7

evaluating social and economical aspects. Consumer perspective is commonly used as a parameter to rank the brand values
of companies. Therefore, when the results of desk research and expert interviews are compared the consumer viewpoint
will act as evidence. The sustainability and innovation are very specific areas and mass of consumers might not be aware of
these subjects, because of this failure of consciousness, the survey for the research is applied on a group to be able to reach
a more acknowledge this group is called “Informed Consumers” and the public opinion mentioned through the paper
represents the public view of this informed group. While conducting a desk research analyses on the some fashion brands
and their sustainability. However, it could not reach any evaluation or mapping of fashion brands and build a new model,
which considers both sustainability and innovativeness as the equity of several brands. In the light of this indicator, it could
be possible to observe if there is relative between the business models and the innovation within sustainability. This model
can be dynamic which means that it can be improved and updated. The model can lead both companies and consumers to
think about sustainability from a closer perspective while increasing the transparency of fashion providers.

Key Factors of Sustainability that Need Addressing in the Clothing Supply Chain

• Animal welfare- ensuring that good standards are upheld during leather and wool production.

• Chemicals in the working environment can be toxic and damage workers’ health and the local environment.

• Energy consumed when we are washing our clothes contributes to climate change.

• Fashion consumption- the increasing number of fashion items that we buy and then dispose of.

• Fashion miles that burn carbon as fabric and clothing are transported around the world.

• The intensity of cotton production requiring lots of energy, water and pesticides.

• Unsustainable man-made fibers can take longer to degrade in landfill sites.

• Working conditions across the supply chain from cotton production.

SUSTAINABLE DESIGN OF CLOTHING ART

The awareness of sustainable development has won support among the people. Ecological environmental clothing
has become a new hot pursuit of fashion. The negative effects caused by the modern life are increasingly reflected. Many
disastrous irreversible trends make human survival at stake in the short-term, such as global warming, air, water land
pollution and energy depletion. People no longer blindly pursuing economic benefits, but gradually realize the importance
of ecological and environmental protection is more in-depth in people’s life and production. Environmental protection
clothing design has become a powerful trend, in order to meet people’s physiological needs of health and hygienic and
sustainable psychological needs. This feature is what we must grasp in the fashion design.

The Fast-Changing of Eco-Friendly Materials

Environmental clothing design needs eco-friendly materials. From the point of view of textile ecology, eco-
friendly materials itself is not contaminated and won’t cause pollution to the environment in the process of production. It is
not only harmless to human body, but also is friendly to environment and beneficial to humans. No wonder green natural
fiber and green regenerated fiber have been used in the environmental clothing. Ecological organic cotton, bamboo fiber,
color natural silk, soybean fiber, milk fiber and corn fiber have been widely used in life. At the same time, human has

www.tjprc.org editor@tjprc.org
8 Rajeev Kumar

injected the traditional fibers into high-tech. Some new synthetic materials emerge at a historic moment which has the
environment protection and corresponds with consumption needs. These new materials make up the shortcomings of the
traditional green fiber in function and make the clothing more comfortable, breathable and functional.

Return to the Combination of Traditional Crafts and Modern Technology

The combination of science, ethics and aesthetics spirit makes people pay more attention to the production of
green clothing, which gradually raises a hot wave of technology back to nature in the world. The combination of traditional
crafts and modern technology make environmental clothing more wonderful from the designers. People use natural dyes
and dyeing fabrics by hand. By weaving, knotting, embroidering, wrinkling, topstitching, pulling the net, beading, tie-
dying, batik, bonding, stitching, hollowing out and other traditional decoration crafts, it can change and enhance the
appearance of the fabric. The modern seamless splicing, digital printing and laser cutting technology can make up some
limitations in the traditional craft. It is not only environmental protection, but also can greatly improve the efficiency of the
clothing production. The combination of the two has realized the product of renewability and recyclability. It has realistic
significance for green clothing and high economic and environmental value for the further research and development.
Fabric reconstruction is the extension of designer’s idea. It is a secondly innovative design to the fabric. In order to meet
the need in design, on the basis of the aesthetic principle, it makes the finished fabric secondary processed. It merges the
combination of traditional crafts and modern technology to generate a new artistic effect. This greatly reflects the theme of
green design and has realized the reuse of fabric. Not only it can save resources, but also is low-carbon green. Making use
of traditional handicrafts and different methods to secondary design of fabric and building new fashion space is to get more
rich fabric effect and make the requirements of environmental protection clothing.

Recreation of Green Textile

Recently, the famous British designers cooperate with scientists to make plastic clothes which will dissolve in the
water. The inventor’s original intention is to let people pay more attention to environment. At the same time, it is better to
make use of clothing to protect environment. This kind of clothing is made by Helen Dorian, a professor of London
College of fashion, and Tony Ryan, a professor of Sheffield Interaction Research Center of British University. They are
trying to find a way to reduce discarded clothes are sent to landfills resulted in pollution and waste. This kind of plastic
clothes is made from biodegradable polyvinyl alcohol, as well as capsule will dissolve in the water. It is reported that
researchers are working on another project-Designing “contact reaction clothing”. They expect to control the pollutions
with the surface of the garment. And then washing and neutralizing. As Dorian said, the clothes have a large surface area
which can be used to purify the air.

Growing Impacts of Climate Change

In coming years the way the climate changes will be critical in shaping our future, because of the time lag in
impacts of present and past estimations on the climate, most of the climate change that we will experience in 2025 is the
result of past pollution. Action between now and 2025 will do little to alter the way the climate changes. The planet will
experience real disruption as a result of climate change in the next 8 years. Individuals and communities, especially in low-
income countries are already experiencing elevated levels of environmental stress as a result of climate change.
The changes to the climate that the world experiences after 2025 will depend on how we respond to climate change over
the next 8 years. This is different in each our scenarios and they would present radically different climate impacts later in

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.9864 NAAS Rating: 2.94

Prospects of Sustainable Fashion Design Innovation 9

the century.

How will Society Respond to Resource Scarcity and Climate Change?

How our societies responds to resource shortages and climate change will depend on a complex set of factors
including the willingness of people and business to change their behavior and the ability of politicians to reach global
collective agreements. Public attitudes will play a key role. How much will people be willingness to make lifestyle choices
that reduce consumption to reduce pressure on the environment? Will radical behavior change occur in pursuits of low-
carbon/impact living? Could we see a shift in values, with people concerned less with consumption and more with
wellbeing and quality of life? Slow is a beautiful present a world in which there has been such a shift in values. In Techno-
Chic a technological response to resource shortages and climate change allows consumption to continue to drive the
economy. The public perception of resource scarcity and climate change will play an important role in influencing the
critical political responses to these problems. Whether stages go for market-led responses or regulatory incentives will have
a big impact on businesses and the role they play. Working with the markets could lead to businesses harnessing
innovation to deliver transformation, such as those seen in Techno-Chic.

Ethics and Aesthetics

Values and Green Aesthetics

Values and ethics are fundamental grounds for sustainable fashion. It would be fruitful for designers to consider
whose values are included in the design process and on what basis. It is also good to remember that there isn’t any value
free design. We should design and construct a new system and basis for value creation, to help us face future challenges in
the sustainable fashion discipline. Such a system could serve to evaluate design proposals and their benefits for sustainable
development. Furthermore manufacturing processes, business models and marketing could be included in this value
evaluation process. Green aesthetics is an approach that combines aesthetic experiences and evaluation with sustainable
values, and it offers an opportunity to mature our aesthetic experiences in the context of fashion.

Value Creation

Design forms an integral part of our culture and values within. This means that sustainable design should not only
take into account economic values, but cultural, social, ethical and environment values should also be included in the
sustainable design process. Designing could change and become a more proactive and participatory process aiming for
aesthetics sustainability. To this ambition it can be added that sustainable design can also be proactive process that aims to
transform consumption patterns toward more sustainable ones and therefore it includes future oriented thinking. It is
important to understand how current design, manufacturing and business practice affects unsustainable consumption
patterns. Products actually configure consumers’ needs and use patterns and hence design can be said to be “practice-
oriented”, which leads to certain everyday consumption habits. Therefore designers, manufacturers and companies are
responsible not only for environmental impacts of the fashion industry but also for unsustainable consumption behavior of
consumers. Designers can even destroy the value of the product by creating fast-changing trends that quickly outdate the
products and render them valueless. The product itself may destroy something valuable, such as a craft skill or local
knowledge and something already have seen in the area of fashion. Manufacturing locations are far from end markets and
local manufacturing skills have diminished or disappeared. At the same time only few consumers can repair their own
garments or have skills to create garments themselves; many do not even own sewing machine. Future-oriented value

www.tjprc.org editor@tjprc.org
10 Rajeev Kumar

creation as an approach guides designer

ers and manufacturers towards farsighted products andd far-sighted business thinking,
transforming current practices towards more
m sustainable societies.

Figurre 1: Future-Oriented Product Value Evaluation

Figure 1 shows the future-orie

iented value in fashion system. All design and manufac
acturing decision has to include
consideration of the future: how the product
pr will be used, how it will age and how it will be disposed of. Moreover the
business model and its influence on con
onsumption practices are included in this evaluation pro
rocess. All these aspects have to
be considered before the product is desi
signed or manufactured. And is there the possibility to completely avoid materialistic
consumption and do business differentl
ntly. Radical thinking is needed to create a new value creation
c process in sustainable
fashion. At the best, a new kind of susta
stainable fashion system can create value for people; pla
lanet and profit (Figure 2.)

Figure 2: Sustainable
ble Fashion System can Create Value for People, Plan
lanet Business

The system can create a safe environment

e through the use of fewer chemicals in pro
roduction. This system can also
promote greater product satisfaction through
th better quality and longer lasting products. It can promote well being and
happiness through better quality and longer lasting products. It can promote well being
ng and happiness through less
materialistic consumption. The top qual
uality and more expensive products, use them longer, own
o less and take good care of
fashion professions. Moreover such syst
ystem is able to more social justice and better working conditions
c for textile factories’
workers, despite the fact that slowing the system it is possible to increase the end price of product and invest in better

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.9864 NAAS Rating: 2.94

Prospects of Sustainable Fashion Design Innovation
In 11

factories. For the environment, throug

ugh cleaner production and perhaps even less industri
trial production and waste, the
benefits for slower cycles are clear. For
or new business models to build return in an environme
mentally beneficial way have to
be created. New systems accepted wisdo
sdom for these radical green business models to encoura
rage less materialistic industrial
manufacturing.

Role of Aesthetics Sustainability in Fashion

Fa

Garments are primarily to cov

over our bodies and stay warm. We may have to wear particular professional clothes
for cultural reasons. This support our identity
i or as a sign of belongings to a certain group
up. There are several causes for
what we choose to wear, but in a lot of
o cases choices are guided by the look that clothing
ng creates the aesthetics. In the
present day, there is certainly no lack of
o choice in clothing. Various fashion chains propose good
g looking garments at very
reasonably priced. At the same time, through the joint effort of researchers, media and activists,
a the awareness of the
problematic environmental and ethical
al issues in the clothing and textile industry has risen,
n, such as pollution and unfair
working conditions. Therefore even companies
co usually seen as fast fashion usually seen as fast fashion are increasingly
including sustainability in their agenda
das. For example, H&M is committed to “provide fash
shion for conscious customers”
and “use natural resources responsibilit
lity” with its conscious line. However as in H&M’s case,
cas the speed of change that is
being promoted by suspiciously cheap
eap clothing constantly new products, frequent sales,
es, and excessive marketing is
anything but sustainable. The small con
onsumption is one approach to ascertain more sustainab
ability in fashion. As aesthetics
play such an important role in clothing
ng choice, it matters equally in the context of sustaina
nability. In terms of developing
attachment to clothing and therefore len
engthening their lifespan, the aesthetics dimension is sustainable.
sus

Ethical Fashion

The possibilities of ecological

al and ethical garments choices are inadequate and des
esigners and producers do what
they can, a situation that can be desc
escribed as realistic thinking. This kind of value-base
ased, yet realistic, approach to
sustainable fashion is the most common
on approach currently existing in the business. Best practice
pr can be defined to mean
that designers and companies choose the
th best environmental and social solution that exists; particularly
p small and medium
size companies have to make their choic
oices from limited possibilities. Sustainable eco-materia
rials that can be ordered in small
amounts, to give only one example, can be most challenging for small companies. Accordin
ingly available resources create
the action framework for sustainable oriented
or designers: i.e. what kinds of design and produ
duction choices they can make.
The bigger the fashion company, the more
mo power and possibilities they have to influence susta
stainable practices in the field.

p Jeans Photo Courtesy: Nurmi Hem Jeans (Photo: Antti

Figure 3: NURMI Hemp A Ahtiluoto)

www.tjprc.org editor@tjprc.org
12 Rajeev Kumar

Figure 4: Ethical Fur, Photo

P Courtesy: Mother Nature Network (Photo: Starre
S Vartan)

uxury, Photo Courtesy: MAGNIFECO from HARPER

Figure 5: Ethical Lux ER’s BAZZAR

CONCLUSIONS

The fashion design is a multi

lti-disciplinary comprehensive art and technology driv
rives the rapid development of
clothing skill. Modern science and tech
chnology supported people-oriented fashion design. It develops forward to meeting
people’s physiological needs. Nowaday
ays, multicultural, environmental protection and intellige
igent digitization become one of
the most efficient themes of the fashion
on design. The rapid development of the network infor
ormation makes clothing design
more efficient. People’s demands for environmental
en health gradually achieve the integrative
ve development of better health.
The frontiers of modern garment design
gn art, exploring a new perspective of modern art of clo
lothing, starting from the multi-
angle and multi-dimensional unceasing
ngly, communicating with multi-culture and setting up a new conception of taking
health as the centre all that are to leadd the fashion design to a broader field with the backin
ing of a strong technical force.
Sustainable fashion must fundamentall
ally be based on values and ethics. This is a challen
enging process and needs new
awareness, a lot of information, and wide
w and open collaboration with various partners; more future-oriented thinking
might help us in this process of plannin
ing a gauging how our design will affect consumption and
a environment. People wear
is connected to the cultural and sub-cul
cultural surroundings, as well as to the current time. Clothing
Cl serves many functions
from covering the body to building identity,
id and aesthetics play a significant role. How
wever the textile and clothing
industry has a huge environmental im
mpact and faces numerous ethical issues. The high volumes
v of waste, both in the
manufacturing phase and in the disposa
sal of products, indicate that slowing down clothing consumption
co and cultivating the
longevity of clothing is essential. Altho
though practically grounded solutions such as sustaina
nable production methods bring

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.9864 NAAS Rating: 2.94

Prospects of Sustainable Fashion Design Innovation 13

tangible benefit, aesthetics must be taken into account in order to create clothing that people want to wear. The aesthetics
dimension is also fundamental for people forming attachments to clothing, valuing and taking care of it, thus lengthening
its lifespan, cultivating longevity, and promoting the ideals of sustainability. Therefore, it is important that both issues, the
practical methods and aesthetics, are addressed together to meet sustainability goals in fashion. Designers’ and companies’
reality today is that they have to make their choices from the limited possibilities and offerings that exist on the current
market, the end design result is not always the ideal or perfect one. Yet we need strong and brave designers and companies
who question today’s practice and examine how to do things differently. Moreover these change-makers can demand
sustainable change from their suppliers, subcontractors or manufacturers and through this pressure create change in the
fashion industry.

REFERENCES

1. Aakko, M. (2013). Sustanable fashion new apporoches. Retrieved september 20, 2017, from https://shop. aalto.
fi/media/attachments/1ee80/SustainableFashion. pdf

2. Anderson, J. (2010). Fashion future. Retrieved september 15, 2017, from https://www. forumforthefuture.
org/sites/default/files/project/downloads/fashionfuturespresentationpdf. pdf

3. Muslu, D. (2014). INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABILITY IN FASHION INDUSTRY. Retrieved august 10, 2017, from
http://bada. hb. se/bitstream/2320/12262/1/2012.13.14. pdf

4. Chunyan, Q., & Yue, H. (2014). The Research and Development of the Future Fashion Design. Retrieved august

5. SOOCHETA, A. V. (2016). SUSTAINABLE FASHION: DESIGNRESEARCH INNOVATION. Retrieved august 17, 2017, from
http://www.textileassociationindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2-III%20-Sustainable%20Fashion%20
%20Design.%20Research%20and%20Innovation%20(Dr.%20Anagha%20V.%20Soocheta).pdf

www.tjprc.org editor@tjprc.org