W2: “The Life-cycle of the Fashion Garment” – Eva

The readings follow class discussions very closely, providing context and elaboration on the subjects. Sasha and I are currently developing ideas for our future projects, and have been thinking about following the manufacturing process by ordering tailoring as part of our research.  The “Garment Design” emphasised how this stage heavily contributes to weather an article of clothing is considered sustainable. (*Planning to bring this up to Sasha for a discussion, I am curious what she retained from this stage in the reading as we prepare our plans*) I would also like to note that Group 2’s presentation on textiles was very effective as I was able to understand Payne’s references and more importantly why she was using the particular references in the context of ecology. In the quotation “purchasing a 250g cotton T-shirt implies purchasing 1,700g of fossil fuel, depositing 450g of waste to landfill and emitting 4kg of CO2 into the atmosphere” the figures are absolutely startling and I would love to see a notice as such on the front of a T-shirt (similarly how nutritional information/ ingredients have to be provided legally) and then to do an observation of costumer reaction. Hypothetically if I were to entertain this short-term ethnographic research pitch, I would do separate samples of 1) the notice being on the clothing as the customers approach it; and 2) providing this information to people at check-out. I would like to see how or if this would change people’s approach to shopping in Fast Fashion stores. At leat for me, I believe this would encourage to really consider if this is a “need”, a “want”, or “autopilot/ store influenced” decision making. Glad I have a change to take this course and learn, so I too can be much more conscious about the larger picture when shopping. Another interesting point I would like to mention is the choice of the investigation location. I think I great input can be gained by looking at a country like Australia, as it is very self-sufficient and is a smaller sample that looking at the content of North America (for example). From this patterns and considerations can be drawn and applied to larger scope operations. 

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