Sustainable Fashion Impact Outcomes
Sustainable Fashion
Students in the Sustainable Fashion Lab worked with faculty from the School of International Letters and Cultures and ASU-partnered local nonprofit The Sustainability Consortium to uncover the environmental and humanitarian impacts of the fashion industry. With funding from Seize the Moment, the entire class endeavored to communicate the scope of fashion's impact and propose sustainable, equitable solutions to the public with an immersive art installation.
Cool Future Fashion for a Hot Planet
Konrad Rykaczewski, an assistant professor at the School for the Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy and Global Futures Scientist at the Global Futures Laboratory, visited the Lab to engage in conversation with students regarding research on thermally engineered garments. Drawing from materials science, nature, and history, he discussed with students how "cool fashions," in context of a warming planet, could offer solutions to heat-related health issues in the future. More importantly, the conversation primed students to further consider how fashion can be designed to prioritize function over aesthetics.
Not Trendy but Timeless: A Sustainable Supply Chain Showcase
The entire Sustainable Fashion Lab collaborated to design Not Trendy but Timeless: A Sustainable Supply Chain Showcase, an immersive art installation articulating each step in the fashion supply chain. Exhibited outside the Student Pavilion on clothing racks for passersby to examine, the installation guided participants through the entire chain in granular detail: raw material extraction, textile manufacturing, the fabric dyeing processes, retail, consumption, and finally end-of-life. The aim was to ignite change by shedding light on the impactful practices behind the clothing with which people interact every day.
Earth Week Conversations
Sustainable Fashion students were invited to showcase their work during the College of Global Futures Earth Week Celebration, which kicked-off with an elaborate building dedication ceremony for the Rob and Melani Walton Center for Planetary Health. Subsequent to the ceremony, during building tours, Lab students engaged with tour attendees to share what they'd learned about the planetary perils of the fashion supply chain and to offer conscientious sustainable options for our fashion futures.
The sustainability-driven installation was located on the 4th floor of the new building in the Humanities Lab's dedicated space.
Grants
In order to earn the funds needed to initiate these projects, our Sustainable Fashion students applied for and received the following grants:
–The entire Sustainable Fashion Lab team applied for and were awarded a Seize the Moment Amplifier Mini-Grant for their Not Trendy but Timeless: A Sustainable Supply Chain Showcase outcome. The individual team leads within the greater team, Kelsey Ouellette, Michelle Andronic, Morgan Adams, Thomas Wu, Kate Hartland, Brad Monday, and Owen Mendenhall, helped facilitate the process.
[Through this Lab] I've learned new ways to shop sustainably and what to look for when it comes to fashion pieces. I now look at my clothes differently when I shop and am trying to learn how to up-cycle clothes.
Danielle Pais - Sustainable Fashion Student