A Design Tool to Identify and Measure the Profile of Sustainable Conscious Fashion Costumer
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Universidade do Minho: RepositoriUM 150 Years of Innovation and Research in Textile Science A DESIGN TOOL TO IDENTIFY AND MEASURE THE PROFILE OF SUSTAINABLE CONSCIOUS FASHION COSTUMER C. Morais 1, C. Carvalho 1, C. Broega 2 1CIAUD – Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Rua Sá Nogueira – Pólo Universitário – Alto da Ajuda – 1349-055 Lisboa, Portugal, 2Dep.Engª Têxtil, Campus de Azurém, Guimarães, Portugal [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] ABSTRACT consumed clothes but as the type of conservation This research intends to help designers to improve exerted on its use and on its disposal. their projects for a new market whose concerns are This instrument will identify groups of consumers leaning toward a more sustainability life-style. with similar personal values, it will examine their Clothing, more precisely "fashion", a better term for buying criteria and it will verify their level of describing the clothing system in the period in which environmental consciousness, having as perspective we live [1], is the fruit of contemporary consumer on the economic viability of future clothes design products and one way of human subject products. expressiveness of social and economic representation in society. The purchase of these products has KEYWORDS witnessed an evolution, first they were searched by Ethical Consumer, Environmental Consciousness, need and now they were bought by impulse and Clothing, Waste consumer desire. This is the reflection of a complex and organized system called fast-fashion . Consumers INTRODUCTION have been encouraged to buy a greater volume of The present study is part of a PhD project in Design, clothes and a large amount of waste materials has with the title "Clothing Design Sustainability ", been increased as well as their impact in Nature. which the goal involves the creation of clothing with However, the environmental awareness also grew and raw materials from discarded clothing. This issue is a new kind of market emerges in the field of fashion of high relevance because in Portugal does not exist [2]. The "environment" has become a differentiation any kind of research in that area and there are few source and a concern requirement that designers and policies to collect unusable or discarded garments. green companies have to recognize, especially In order of culminate this gap we propose this work because of the values related to the preservation of starting with an "instrument for the identification and the universe as a whole; this is increasingly felt by measurement of consumer profile of ethical fashion" consumers, the main social actors in the construction to discover future needs and proper methods of reuse of the consumption of green products and brands [3]. and recycling of clothes. Therefore, the consumer is All products we buy obey to a lifecycle, but if the the starting point of the research process because it Design is a methodology to “solve problems”, will be through their opinions and attitudes, regarding designers can change consumption trends by the buying criteria and policies of waste, and the projecting products of greater durability and more reuse of clothing, that Design methodology will efficiency planning, rationalizing all resources progress. implied in the product lifecycle [4]. This tool will allow to find values and features of This study is made on the basis of a similar study common environmental involvement, among performed by Bertolini and Possomai, but instead of consumers and fashion users, to confirm if consumers being applied to a generic ecologically, ethical are actually "Lohas” (Lifestyle of health and products, it will be specific for the clothing field. A sustainability) or other style, more restricted, the true methodology will be made based on an instrument in market segment of future consumers of sustainable the form of questionnaire for a consumers focus fashion. According to the literature, this group of group between 25 and 65 years, part of a active people who cares about the environment and the working population that has more interest in Fashion sustainable products spend money to promote their [5]. The study variables will take into account not potential and personal development. However, their only generic parameters related to the type of most buying behavior is not going with its principles. For financial reasons or some health issues many of them AUTEX 2011 Conference – 8 – 10 th June 2011 – Mulhouse – France 388 150 Years of Innovation and Research in Textile Science do not see how the garment may have an impact on the New York Fashion Week) and other smaller personnel health [6] and others did not realize the samples submitted punctually as the 22nd Edition of impact that their purchase of clothing may have on the São Paulo Fashion Week "or international the environment [7]. Then, it come a paradigm exhibitions related to the Design of products between the acquisition and use of clothing in produced with recycled materials, such as Remade, sustainably way with the importance of personal the project of Italian origin. values of individuals, not discarding the negative or positive connotations that the acquisitions of LITERATURE discarded clothing can benefit. Design for environmental and eco fashion Sustainable Design moves in a rational planning of APPROACH all resources implied in the product life cycle. And The relationship between productivity and resource the conscious designer has the function of spreading use in the textile and clothing industry entered in a responsibility and common sense in products that he chronic and ineffectual pattern witnessing projected, to minimize harmful impacts to the environmental and economic impacts at all stages of environment. All phases of a service or product procedure [8]. Faced with these facts and along with creating, should be accompanied by sustainable and some considerations identified by the "Forum for the integrated methodologies, since distribution , through Future" [9] and by honorary Greenpeace investigator, use, until their discarding, a theory also advocated by David Santillo [10], "Fashion consumption" and Manzini that corresponds to the exchange of inputs "Waste and recycling management" are part of the and outputs between environment and production concerns that should be reviewed for the processes [11]. development of new products. The Fashion Design must integrate this process too, The "Fashion consumption" relates to an individual's because their products are cyclical and fast and exert behavior as consumers or users involving questions a strong influence on people. It is true that the market about clothing purchase, manner of use, preservation is changing and the environmental concern starts to and discarding forms after the product life cycles end, be an important requirement in the clothing design. factors which essentially depend on lifestyles for However, although that movement for a more natural each individual. and healthy via has emerged from the 1970s, only “Waste” is a problem that has significantly increased since the late 1990s, with ISO 14000, textile firms, due to the growth of "fast fashion", which cooperates among others from different areas, began to develop with quality levels standardized and low prices, sustainable projects and extended theirs concepts to encouraging consumers to have more clothes and social ethics. discard them quickly. In sequence these discarded The role of Design and Engineering are crucial in that clothes go to the landfill because the fashion passed transformation and increasingly important to the and the items were not sold becoming wasted industry. The brand Patagonia that creates and resources if not recycled. There are some companies produces recycled clothing as well as the Japanese which adopt strategies of reusability by collecting company Tejin Fibers that launched the "Eco-Circle" discarded clothing to donation (as the case of English [12] are examples of success in monetizing waste and Brand Marks & Spencer who develops a "re-use" reducing energy consumption and carbon dioxide form in collaboration with Oxfam designated by the emissions through the collection and recycling of Plan A) and other productive sustainable policies synthetic garments. Therefore, in practical terms, adopting using organic or recyclable and recycling polyester clothing is a reality because their biodegradable materials (as the case of Brazilian production processes permit so; the difficulty is in Osklen). recycle clothing with a mix of different fiber, being However, the role of Design should be stimulated to hard their separation and their transformation. In our the monetization of resources and waste need to be opinion, Design can contribute to evaluate and integrated into solutions which benefits not only to manage all the possibilities to convert the unusable help the social principles of ecology and ethics, as garments, in new clothing not neglecting the help well as, to offer products of a high level of Design for from potential users. a increasing market aware. Some initiatives have already been promoted as a result of media attention, Clothing consumer behavior present in fashion as in "Estethica" (eco sustainable The study of consumer behavior examines the fashion fair in London Fashion Week), "So Ethic" attitudes of individuals when they select to use the (integrated into Pret-à-Porter Paris), "Challange"