Trends And Opportunities

The sustainable development has been becoming an extremely urgent task in the21st Century. Amidthis specific background, the sustainable fashion industry is expected to play a key role in the process ofreconstructing eco-environment as an integral part of the world’s sustainability efforts. As a newindustrial concept, the sustainable fashion involves not only the renovated form of design, but also thenew design methods, which generates from a profound mix of both scientific and social origins, and,more importantly, the transformation of fundamental design value.This paper starts with an introduction of the overall concepts, history and significance of research ofsustainability and sustainable design. From a comparative research angel, the paper goes through thedevelopment process of sustainable clothing across the world, and stresses China’s focus on building upa fashion industry that addresses the importance and urgency of "sustainable design" in the context ofglobalization.Furthermore, the paper studies the evolution of the concept of "sustainable fashion design” along withthe evolution of post-industrial society, and discusses the methods of implanting and disseminating theconcept, aiming at exploring the best-fitting social behaviors as well as the new roles and “action space”for both designer and consumer underlining the changes in industries and societies. By summarizingthe impact of sustainable development over the Western apparel industry, the paper also endeavors toprovide logical predictions for the industry’s future..The paper discusses the building of the eco-fashion system, which bears the “from cradle to cradle”features, based on the Chinese traditional thoughts of circulation. The writer advocates introducing the“circulation model” into the industry, in order to build up a sustainable fashion industry chain; and looksinto the changes in designer’s role parallel to the renovation at each link of the industry chain. In thesustainable industry chain to be developed, the designer will be required to become a co-decision makerand educator, in addition to its original function as designer.The writer proposed a new structure of future fashion design education against the sustainabilitybackground, which includes1) undergraduate programs aiming at promoting the specific concepts,2)in-campus research institution focusing on sustainable fashion design, and3) cooperation between theenterprises and academic space in order to improve both the feasibility of new designs and economicefficiency. As all the three factors above get more integrated and interactive to each other, we will havebetter chance to develop new designer catering for the future evolution in fashion industry.