MISTRA Future Fashion, Phase 1
Can we co-design a new fashion textile industry?
In 2010 a call went out for researchers to create consortiums to compete for a new funding pot created by MISTRA in Sweden. The objective was to create new insights through collaboration to enable the fashion industry to become more sustainable. Professor Becky Earley was invited to join a project led by Mats Westin at SP (now RISE), on the back of her work with Swedish brand H&M at the Sustainable Fashion Academy in Stockholm.
This cross-disciplinary research program started in June 2011 with an award of £4 million; it involved researchers within environmental science, business and CSR, behavioural science, political science, sustainable design, psychology and technical science. The ultimate objective was to initiate a systemic change of the Swedish Fashion industry that would lead to sustainable development of wider society, while at the same time strengthening the competitiveness of the Swedish industry.
The CCD researcher team – Becky Earley, Kate Goldsworthy, and Kay Politowicz, along with PhD researcher Clara Vuletich – all worked on the phase 1 project. Miriam Ribul and Josefin Landalv assisted the team in developing new educational workshops and tools for industry designers and for academic organisations. New insights were gained from using The TEN with the Higg Index to pre- and post- score product concepts produced through design thinking workshops. Phase 1 outcomes also included the Textile Toolbox web platform, an experimental outcome that showcased new thinking achieved with tools and frameworks to help designers at all stages of their careers. A full project report is available from the website:
