Green Fashion

Abstract

“If indigo was invented today, we would never approve it.” Reflecting on this statement by Andrew Olah related to a 2014 Just Style publication on environmental textiles for apparel led our team of six apparel design scholars into a sustainable design challenge. Our study offers a collective model of sustainable design wherein faculty in a university fashion and apparel program combined efforts and talents to develop a solution for reducing the environmental impact of indigo (while retaining aesthetic richness) through the integration of traditional and digital design. A case study method is adopted as a specific, unique, and bounded system (Stake 2008) that frames the creative process so as to capture best practice within a collective design working model. Within this model we analyze historic dye processes and relevant literature, as well as emergent technologies to define criteria for the resulting design output. Qualitative data in the form of observations, as well as our personal reflections as designers and educators, are transcribed and analyzed.