Sustainable Fashion Development: Applying Transformational Design

Abstract

<p>Fashion is like the high-speed rotation of a tire, where styles with a specific set of aesthetic characteristics that are adopted by a group of people during a limited period of time change frequently (Ruppert-Stroescu & Hawley, 2014). Participating in the fashion system involves selective human behavior influenced psychological desires and social needs; people represent their self-identity, social order, self-emotion taste, hobbies and social habits by their clothing preferences (Wilk, 2002). Consumers in the United States change styles rapidly to keep up with fashion (Lang, Armstrong, & Brannon, 2013), and apparel overconsumption is depleting both renewable and non-renewable natural resources (Cao, Frey, Farr, & Gam, 2006). Engaging the sustainable design theoretical frameworks of C2C (McDonough & Braungart, 2002) and empathic design (Niinimäki & Koskinen, 2011) with transformational design, a method to create products that can be adapted by the user (Zhen Wang, Wang, Lian Yu, Sun, Liu, & Min Wei, 2014), the purpose of this research was to create The Moment (Figure 1), a product line that extends the use time of clothing by providing consumers more options for diverse styles within one garment to increase wearing frequency and ultimately reduce the frequency of new purchases and subsequent waste.</p>