Fashion and Sustainability: Understanding Luxury Fashion in a Changing World
Get an introduction to issues, agendas and contexts relating to fashion and sustainability in a changing world.
Duration
6 weeksWeekly study
3 hours
Fashion and Sustainability: Understanding Luxury Fashion in a Changing World
How can we make fashion more sustainable?
Fashion is a global industry worth $2.4 trillion, employing around 50 million people, and is said to be one of the world’s most polluting industries.
Fashion has the power to make positive change, re-imagining currently damaging systems.
Get an introduction to sustainable fashion design, research and business practice, with this course from London College of Fashion’s Centre for Sustainable Fashion, supported by luxury fashion group Kering.
On this course, you’ll explore key sustainability issues, agendas and contexts associated with luxury fashion.
Syllabus
Week 1
Why Sustainability in Fashion?
Welcome to the course
Welcome to the course! This set of steps will give you an idea of how the course works and what you will cover over the next six weeks.
Sustainability and luxury fashion
In this first week you’ll be hearing from Professor Dilys Williams, Director of Centre for Sustainable Fashion, and Marie-Claire Daveu, Chief Sustainability Officer at Kering.
What are the agendas that affect sustainability?
This step will explore Social, Economic, Ecological and Cultural agendas and their context for fashion and sustainability.
Week 2
Contextualizing Sustainability for a Changing World
Sustainability issues in relation to luxury fashion
This week introduces you to the issues and context of fashion and sustainability in a changing world.
Introduction to Planetary Boundaries and Human Equality
In this step we introduce you to Planetary Boundaries and Human Equality as contexts for fashion and sustainability. We begin with examining the world in which we live in order to understand where we are best placed to contribute.
Demonstrating your values through creating a draft manifesto
Over the next steps we would like you to take what you learned about sustainability and focus on what is most relevant and applicable to your own work and principles. We will guide you through steps to create a draft manifesto.
Week 3
Material Dimensions: Sourcing for luxury fashion
The role of materials in luxury fashion and sustainability
This set of steps introduces you to social and environmental considerations within fashion supply chains, and helps you to understand how to make better informed materials related decisions.
The challenges of sustainable sourcing
Material specialists explore the environmental, social, economic, aesthetic and logistical challenges that sourcing materials exposes.
The sourcing debate
The debate! Exploring how differing priorities need to be negotiated and resolved in the developing of sustainable luxury products.
Week 4
Informed Decision Making: tools and methods
The business of fashion and sustainability: tools for measuring environmental profit and loss in luxury fashion
Welcome to week 4! This week we introduce you innovative tools for environmental and social measurement, and its impacts on luxury fashion.
Shifts in scale and habit
In this step we would like you to think about the scale and volume of fashion consumption, changes in fashion habits, and how we might reimagine ways in which fashion success might shift from quantity sold to value gained.
Social sustainability and ethics in luxury fashion business
This step introduces the imperative for social responsibility and explores ways in which this can be considered in luxury fashion business practice.
Week 5
Creative Possibilities
Empowering imagination: innovative approaches
Welcome to week 5! This week we will be using design for sustainability methods and processes to generate and explore ideas. We’ll be discussing what is good design, and how to approach fashion design for sustainability.
Design methods
In this step we introduce you to design methods that offer structured techniques that help us design solutions to real world problems.
Design challenge!
Now it’s your turn! In this step we have set a design challenge around the agendas and issues. You will follow the same steps that we have just guided you through to work through a design challenge.
Week 6
Creative Realisation
Be a changemaker
You have reached the final week of the course - congratulations! In this final week we invite you to be a changemaker, encouraging you to revisit, reflect, refine and share your manifesto for fashion and sustainability.
Creative narratives
This step offers tips on how to creatively communicate your manifesto and tell your story.
Looking ahead
Congratulations, conclusions and reflections – together we look ahead to our future where we can make positive impacts and effect meaningful change across fashion.
When would you like to start?
Start straight away and learn at your own pace. If the course hasn’t started yet you’ll see the future date listed below.
Available now
Learning on this course
You can take this self-guided course and learn at your own pace. On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...
- Discuss the complex nature of sustainability through the introduction to materials sourcing for luxury fashion; informed decision making; and creative realisation of ideas.
- Apply understanding of fashion & sustainability knowledge and reflection to your practice through manifesto creation and design thinking processes.
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of key sustainability agendas, issues and contexts associated with luxury fashion design, production and consumption.
- Debate current and emerging perspectives, design approaches and business strategies relevant to the contexts of planetary boundaries and human equality.
- Develop innovative approaches to fashion that can contribute to ecological resilience and thriving societies.
Who is the course for?
This course is aimed at those working in fashion, fashion education, and those with an interest in sustainability in the fashion industry.
Who will you learn with?
Professor Dilys Williams FRSA is Director of Centre for Sustainable Fashion, a University of the Arts Research Centre based at London College of Fashion.
Education for Sustainability Leader at Centre for Sustainable Fashion, London College of Fashion
Who developed the course?
London College of Fashion
London College of Fashion, UAL is a world leader in fashion design, media and business education. We have been nurturing creative talent for over a century, offering courses in all things fashion.
Kering
Kering sees sustainability as a necessity, for sustainability and luxury are one and the same.
Learning on FutureLearn
Your learning, your rules
- Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps, but you can complete them as quickly or slowly as you like
- Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
- Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores
Join a global classroom
- Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
- Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
- Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others
Map your progress
- As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
- Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
- Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate
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