Wearing matters : engaging 'users' and changing relationships with clothes

A practice oriented view of sustainable fashion design proposes that contributing to a sustainable material culture is just as much about changing relationships with the things we use, as it is about designing and making new things sustainably. The concept of sustainable fashion immediately declares a paradox. It represents the necessary reconciliation of the incompatible temporalities of long lasting, low impact engagements with clothes and systemic impulses to update fashionably. This has represented a barrier to changing relationships and patterns of use, as the massive material detritus of post-consumer textile waste indicates short product lifespans due to material or fleeting fashion value, and the prevalence of short-term disposable, relationships. Inspired by the popularity of user-centred design approaches in various fields of design and the imperative of sustainable design theory to foster enduring product engagements, this paper proposes to look at what user-centred design might mean in fashion design research and pedagogy.