Abstract

Fashion consumption has accelerated at an unprecedented rate over the last few years. Ever more clothes are brought and discarded. This is not sustainable.

The considerate design project has been researching how to make textile consumption more sustainable by developing a tool to help designers to be more conscious of the environmental and ethical impact of their designs, and by developing ways to personalize designs, so that fit is no longer an obstacle to actually wearing a purchased garment.

The project has developed a simple tool to help designers in visualizing the relative impact of different design choices; and is using P3 models to access the economic viability of customization.

About the speaker: Dr Eckert is a Senior Lecturer in Design at the Open University. She is also the former Assistant Director of the Engineering Design Centre Cambridge. Her research focuses around improving engineering design processes as well as comparing practices across different design domains.