An Initial Exploration Of Sustainable Development Models In Apparel Design

Creation and innovation are the driving force behind societal development. Design culturepursues innovation, has the advantage of expanding market demand, and is conducive toeconomic growth and widespread recognition. In terms of the two aspects of social utility andfashion culture, divergent innovation and the driving of consumption should be the maindirection for apparel design. Based on this kind of “traditional” cognizance, starting in the1980’swith the spread of consumer culture, apparel design began to trend towards flashy, exaggerateddesign patterns and a paradigm of expansionism, which continues to the present day. However,after turn of the millennium, with a downturn in global economic trends, consumers’ buyingpower has slowly been chipped away at, forcing some top global brands to rely on relativelycheaper auxiliary brands in order to support the industry. At the same time, consumer demandstowards apparel have gradually transformed from simply a consideration of appearances to amore replete set of requirements in terms of quality, functionality, comfort, and effect on health,among other things. In the face of the grim context of globalisation, combined with increasinglysevere natural, economic, social and psychological crises, individuals involved in the designindustry are forced to redefine concepts of innovation in order to reflect upon the real purpose ofapparel design. At this time, it’s up to designers to transmit new concepts for apparelconsumption, and establish new fashion concepts that have a low carbon footprint and areenvironmentally conscious and sustainable. In such a situation, the initiation of sustainableapparel design models and their implementation has become an important task for all aspects ofthe industry. This is not a consideration of simply competition strategies between brands, but alsoa matter of adapting to constantly changing economic trends on the part of these brands. At thesame time, for the end-consumers–the wide base of consumers, sustainable apparel design isable to bring about a more humanistic design concept–in this aspect a sustainable model ofdevelopment is a necessity.This text will place apparel design behaviour in the context of the economic situation aswell as the social and cultural environment, through theoretical analysis sort through origins andprospects for sustainable design models, and seek to provide reference and meaning for thedomestic apparel design industry through case analyses.