Sustainable Fashion: A Handbook for Educators

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sustaInaBlE FashIon : a handBooK For Educators

case study 6

studEnt: anna VEnIng

“Designing Happiness

Consumerism can be understood as a way of life that
is excessively preoccupied with the consumption of
economic goods, equating personal happiness with
consumption. We consume in an attempt to satisfy
our fundamental human needs, mainly our social needs
of esteem, companionship and community. ‘Designing
Happiness’ aims to explore how designers could satisfy
these needs in other ways, not by creating the latest
fast fashion garment, but by encouraging people to get
together with friends, establish communities, appreciate the
world around us and learn and create new things.” (Anna
Vening, 2008

KEy tExts

Chapman, J. (2005) Emotionally Durable Design, London:
Earthscan

Clarke, D.B., Doel, M.A. and Housiaux, K.M.L. (2003) The
Consumption Reader, London: Routledge

De Botton, A. (2004) Status Anxiety, London: Hamish
Hamilton

Gorman, P. (2004) Motivation and Emotion, London:
Routledge

papErs

Manzini, E. (2005) Enabling solution, social innovation and
design for sustainability, DIS-Indaco, Politechno di Milano

Manzini, E. (2006) Design ethics and sustainability: Guidelines
for a transition phase, DIS-Indaco, Politechno di Milano

wEB

http://www.howies.co.uk
http://www.keepandshare.co.uk
http://www.loop.ph

prIMary rEsEarch

Questionnaires sent out on happiness and analysed.

Interviews with designers.

acKnowlEdgEMEnts

Rebecca Earley, Designer and Reader, Textile Environment

Design (TED) research group, who supervises dissertations

and contributes the eco design, sustainability and

responsibility issues to the Theory programme, and leads

the TED research group; Course Director of BA (Hons)

Textile Design, Professor Kay Politowicz; and Clara Vuletich,

Research Assistant (TED) - all at Chelsea College of Art

and Design, University of the Arts, London. Thanks to Dr. Jo

Turney, External Examiner for Theory at Chelsea College

of Art and Design 2004-8 for her comments which have

contributed to the course team’s development of the

theory element of the programme.