Sustainable Fashion: A Handbook for Educators

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sustaInaBlE FashIon : a handBooK For Educators

Your institution may also wish to explore the options of
team teaching or having one educator teaching across
different courses.

• Build the school/college/university’s work on
  sustainability fashion around a unique selling point
  Your educational institution could establish a reputation
  as a leader in sustainable fashion, but it will first need
  to define what sustainability fashion means for the
  institution, which areas it will focus on or whether it
  aims to develop expertise in all areas of sustainability
  fashion. There are a number of subject areas related to
  sustainable fashion which are not being comprehensively
  researched or taught in fashion educational institutions.
  These include:
  
  
  • The impact of the buying process on working
    conditions and the environment, and ways to re-
    structure the buying process to mitigate this impact.
  
  
  • Marketing, promotion and journalism in relation to
    sustainable fashion.
  
  
  • Ethical consumerism and ways to reduce
    material consumption.
  
  
  • Support for fair trade companies and producers.
  
  
  • How legislation, international regulation and national
    laws impact on garment supply chains, workers and
    the environment.
  
  
  • Slow fashion.
  
  
  
  

A strong research base, professorships, courses, etc.,

could be built around these areas of work could filter

through to other courses.

• Using industry links as a way of increasing knowledge
  Many schools, colleges and universities have strong
  industry links that could be built on to increase
  knowledge of the issues, create case studies and invite
  industry speakers, and for staff training. Communication
  with industry need not be just one way (i.e. industry
  telling students what it needs); students also need to tell
  industry how it must change.


• Decide whether the starting point is integration of
  sustainability issues across the board, a separate area of
  teaching, or a combination of the two.
  The starting point could be to ensure sustainability
  underpins as many courses as possible, for example by
  integrating sustainability into the assessment criteria for
  all courses. This could meet with resistance from teaching

staff who may not feel equipped to teach these issues

and may therefore be something that happens at a later

stage. An alternative could be to offer students optional

or compulsory modules of study. A risk here is that the

issues become ghettoised but it could be a good way to

enhance specialist knowledge and ensure that sustainability

is clearly identifiable within the curricula. There are other

pros and cons of taking either of these approaches and,

ideally, the institution will combine the two.

• Set up a steering group for ensuring integration of
  sustainability issues into the curriculum
  This could involve representatives of support and
  teaching staff, students and administration team.


• Ensure resources are available to students
  and educators
  
  
  • Develop educational tools and resources
    (see the teaching resources section of http://www.
    fashioninganethicalindustry.org).
  
  
  • Ensure library staff have the necessary resources and
    time to build a sustainable fashion resource section
    (see http://fashioninganethicalindustry.org/resources/
    for information about resources and how to order
    from Fashioning an Ethical Industry).
  
  
  
  


• organise extra-curricular events that support
  educators, support staff and students
  Suggestions for these events include:
  
  
  • Freshers’ Week – Events could be held during this
    week to highlight the university’s commitment to
    sustainability fashion education from the outset of
    the student’s career.
  
  
  • Exhibitions.
  
  
  • Seminars, see, for example, the University of
    Delaware’s Fashioning Social Responsibility
    lecture series (http://www.udel.edu/fash/highlights/
    lectureseries.html).
  
  
  • Run sustainability fashion weeks or events throughout
    the year (see http://www.fashion.arts.ac.uk/green.htm
    for information about London College of Fashion’s
    ‘Green is the New Black’ week of events).
  
  
  
  


• Provide staff training and opportunities for professional
  development in sustainable fashion
  
  
  • Offer mandatory and optional training sessions for
    support staff (including technologists) and educators.
    Creating staff development exercises that encourage