Mia Shu
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Sustainable Fashion Educator Pack

 

Sustainable Fashion Educator Pack

Enable educators in higher education to deliver sustainable fashion content

Redress, 2017

 
 

The Redress Design Award Educator Pack has been developed by Redress as entry-level material to enable educators in higher education to deliver the message of sustainable fashion.

The pack provides tools and resources to introduce the topic to students, including ready-to-use slide shows provided with talking points and links to relevant videos, with an aim to minimise time spent on research and preparation.

My role

I co-developed the content of this pack with my direct supervisor. My main role involves user research, content development, and page layout design

Tools

InDesign

 
 

The gap between fashion universities and the needs of the industry

This pack has been created many years after consulting educators and students from varying levels of research and development in sustainable fashion. We found an overwhelming need globally in supporting educators to integrate sustainability into the higher education curriculum. In particular, this pack evolved after a key round table discussion held in collaboration with Hong Kong Design Institute in 2015 on ‘The Future of Sustainable Fashion Education’ which revealed key findings below.

  • There is insufficient knowledge around the complex field of sustainability in fashion for both educators and students.

  • There is a lack of teaching resources, and the existing curriculum schedule allows little or no time for fashion students and educators to develop new content.

  • A mismatch exists between the level of sustainability education provided by fashion universities and the needs of the industry.

Photos credit: Redress

Photos credit: Redress

 
 

Engaging the users throughout the development process

Research existing educational materials

We have researched into fashion and non-fashion disciplines educational materials. From this research, we have identified key elements that are essential for our pack (e.g. learning outcomes, format, design and layout). In particular, we have adopted the use of case studies to allow students to explore the concept and how it can be applied to real world. 

Consultation with educators of higher education 

As we have limited teaching experience, we have consulted a number of Hong Kong and overseas lecturers in fashion design institutions. It helped us to understand challenges and opportunities in teaching sustainable fashion, their teaching methods, and how we can create the pack better for their use. For example, educators wish to have ready-to-use PowerPoint slides to assist their teaching and to save their preparation time. 

Feedback from ‘users’ 

After the initial development, we have sought feedback from both fashion design students and educators. We wanted to know whether the materials were clear to them and how these materials compare to their own learning at their own fashion institutions.

Photo credit: Redress

Photo credit: Redress

 
 

A modular, time saving, and easy-to-use educational materials

Content

This pack (as of 2018) focuses primarily on issues surrounding textile waste, covering the topics of a garment’s lifecycle, and three sustainable design techniques: zero-waste design, up-cycling and reconstruction design. Content within each pack provides a minimum of one-hour’s teaching materials, including an introduction, the issues surrounding textile waste, 3 designers or brand case studies and 2 short in-class exercises. In addition, out-of-class project briefs of varying lengths are provided to supplement content.

Features

Educators can use the pack in its entirety as ready-to-deliver content, or use single components to include within their own regular teaching. For example, they can choose to use a zero-waste design case study in a current curriculum to replace other non-sustainable examples normally used.

In addition, we have provided slides and talking points to support each case study. We have also developed a list of questions where the educators can encourage students to discuss the successes of the brand or designer as well as the potential limitations of their particular approach.
 

Example: Talking points to support case study

Example: Talking points to support case study

Example: Case study presentation slides

Example: Case study presentation slides