Short Course

An overarching aim of our short course is to develop socially aware citizens of the world who take responsibility for their actions as consumers and become more active in decision making towards sustainability, utilizing skills to upcycle and do more with less. Providing students with an understanding of their ability to create a more sustainable future for all. While the conversation of ‘ethical consumer’ has increased across industry and academia, a move towards sustainable practice for consumers has yet to embrace sustainable goods and practices (Roberts, 1996; Butler and Francis, 1997). These studies suggest that the convictions of consumers toward the consumption of sustainable goods have yet to translate into action. The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is aimed at providing a blueprint of 17 goals for a more sustainable future linked with economic, social, and environmental growth. Focusing on the sustainability goals that are being put at risk by the fashion industry, stainable consumption, and production (Goal 12) is about doing more and better with less.

​

Through engaging in this short course students will begin to question everyday activities, such as buying recycling clothing and ‘green washing.’ They will develop the capacity to research companies and their sustainability and ethical approach to their employees. Through participating in this short course, we will be developing more socially responsible students, who are fully informed of the full effect of their fashion choices, on both human life and the planet we live on.

 

A recent report by Pulse of the Fashion Industry has stated that fashion generates 4% of the world’s waste each year, 92 million tons.

The Global Fashion Agenda has estimated every year over 4 million tons of textiles are incinerated or landfilled in the European Union.

                                                                    (Circular Actions — Global Fashion Agenda, 2022)

​

On average people look for inexpensive and affordable clothes produced by mass-market retailers to represent the latest trends taken from the most recent catwalks. The fast fashion industry allows people to purchase ‘new’ and ‘on trend’ clothing that is produced rapidly by big and more affordable brands, only to wear them a few times.

​

Consumers’ understanding of the debate between the fast fashion industry available to them, and their interests in environmental sustainability is key to effecting change. According to Birtwistle and Moore 2007 research, the disposal of fashion items is linked to the lack of knowledge of the negative effects of the fashion industry on the environment.

​

This short course aims to help students to question, critique and evaluate what is happening in the world, questioning both the consumer and the industry in why fast fashion exists. The fashion industry is amongst the leading industries that negatively affect the environment. Globalization has made the production of increasingly less expensive clothes possible, leading to Changing consumer attitudes to apparel consumption, linked with low-cost production and sourcing of materials from overseas industrial markets has led to a culture of impulse buying in the fashion industry (McNeill and Moore, 2015).

​

Students will be required to think critically about the world’s approach to fast fashion. Enabling students to make more informed decisions around their approach to fashion in future, considering the sustainability of clothing and the ethics behind their production. Through engaging in this short course students will question the world around them and become more ethical beings that acknowledge their responsibility to the planet we inhabit. Through researching activist initiatives like Fashion Revolution, which aim to “make production chain more transparent to the eyes of consumers,”

Students will develop the capacity to problem solve, as they acquire mending skills that have become a’ scarcity’ in the modern, break it and bin its generation. Through the mending and upcycling workshops, students can reinvent their wardrobe with items they already own, becoming more financially aware, and sustainable.