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Hello curious people. I'm Associate Professor Timo Rissanen, a fashion and textiles researcher with a focus on sustainability and social justice. I'm also the research director at the Center of Excellence in Sustainable Fashion and Textiles. I am here to answer your curious questions about how we can transform the future of fashion, tackle waste, and embrace sustainability while still having fun with style.
 
This is fashion curious.
 
Our youth community have sent in some thought provoking questions to tackle. Let's get started. What's the most important thing we should all think about in relation to clothing? Given that overproduction and overconsumption is the number one problem for the fashion industry today. I think the question that we should all be asking is, what does enough look like for me when it comes to my wardrobe and to my clothing?
 
In Australia, we are one of the highest consumers of clothing in the world. We are approximately buying 53 garments per person per year. According to a couple of recent studies from a planetary perspective, a safe level of consumption would be somewhere between 5 to 7 garments per person per year. For us in Australia, that means somewhere between 90 to 95% reduction in the volumes of clothing that we're buying.
 
Now with that comes some really tricky but also interesting questions that we should all be asking. What are the garments that I already have that are bringing me the greatest joy and satisfaction and are working for me because that's different for each of us, because our lifestyles are different, our tastes are different, and so forth and it's safe to say that nobody needs 53 garments in a year.
 
What sustainable fashion practices do you personally follow? I try to buy as little as possible, and with that I try to think very carefully what is it that I need and what are the gaps in my wardrobe at any one time? And when I do identify a gap, I try and find the best possible option in terms of quality.
 
And when I say quality, I don't mean just the sort of physical durability, but also something that will withstand a number of seasons. It's not, you know, subject to trends and so forth. But nonetheless, I think there is usefulness in learning to resist a little bit, like the sort of perceived need to constantly be wearing the latest thing.
 
We don't need to be doing that. I think finding your own personal style is much more important, and that also evolves. But it evolves at a much slower pace. Be attuned to what is it that I need at this point in time? Who am I and how do my clothes reflect that? So I think that that is the kind of grounding for anyone to start thinking about sustainability.
 
Can fashion and sustainability coexist while still being fun? Absolutely they can. I think fashion should be fun. It should bring joy to us. It should bring enjoyment and satisfaction to us. Sustainability shouldn't compromise that in any way. The one thing that you know is different when we bring sustainability into consideration is, is the volumes of things that we buy.
 
So we do need to reduce the number of things that we buy. But there is ample research to show that does that does not in any way need to reduce the level of satisfaction and joy that we get out of clothing. About a decade ago, I was part of a research project called Local Wisdom led by Professor Kate Fletcher, and in that project we interviewed about 300 people about the kind of satisfaction that clothing brought to them.
 
And we learn from that, from speaking with those 300 or so people that often it's the things that we've had for five years or ten years or 20 years that are the things that bring the greatest joy to us. We can be sustainable when it comes to our wardrobes and still be having great lives. What are the benefits of fashion rental services and when should I consider renting instead of buying?
 
Rental makes a lot of sense. In a special occasion dressing for example, formals, weddings, birthdays and so forth. Now you might be considering buying something, but I would invite you to think, can I get 25 to 30 wears out of this dress? And if the answer is no, then I would consider renting it instead of buying. We really need to make the most of the garments that have been manufactured, and that's where rental can make a difference, particularly in the types of garments in an individual wardrobe.
 
Just don't get a lot of wear. Recently, UTS has worked on a research project with the peer to peer fashion rental platform The Volte, to investigate the environmental impact of fashion rental, as well as the qualitative impact of rental on both the people who rent through it and the lenders who are renting out their wardrobes through the platform.
 
You can find out more about the project just by looking through the UTS website and searching for The Volte. What is the role of technology in making the fashion industry more sustainable? There are many exciting developments in the field of technology in helping to make fashion more sustainable. In the area of advanced manufacturing here at UTS, we invested in a Shima Seiki seamless knitting machine a couple of years ago.
 
This technology allows the knitting of whole garments from yarn with no assembly required, and this has the potential to greatly reduce material waste in manufacturing. Another technology that's really exciting is 3D designs software for example, Clo 3D, which allows us fashion designers to investigate this sort of garment form virtually on screen. Before we make any physical samples through conventional methods, we might make ten samples before we arrive at the perfect final garment sample and Clo 3D allows us to do that virtually.
 
It also facilitates manufacturing in different ways. It can speak to other technologies, for example, automated cutting, body scanning and so forth, which has the potential to make custom made and made to measure clothing much more affordable than it currently is. So I am quite optimistic about some of these technologies, what they can make possible, in terms of creating more satisfying fashion for all of us.
 
Why don't more brands adopt sustainable practices? The simple answer is money. And for a couple of different reasons. On one hand, particularly for brands that rely on the products to be as cheap as possible, ensuring that the workers get paid a fair wage, ensuring that nontoxic chemicals are used in the garments, ensuring that the packaging is recyclable, and so forth and so forth.
 
All of those things will impact the bottom line one way or the other. And so for a brand that is just trying to push the price as low as possible, there is no easy answer because sustainability costs money. Another reason might be that for some brands, even if they want to do good, they simply don't know where to start because the problems can seem so overwhelming and so complex.
 
For those brands, I would say start with one thing and choose something that is really relevant to you. A thing that is going to make an impact in your particular company, because that will also be different from company to company. And if you get really stuck, do contact us at the Center of Excellence and Sustainable Fashion and Textiles.
 
We do work with brands in figuring out these issues. Collaboration is key across the board and we are always happy to collaborate with companies. How can we teach design in a way that prepares students to create a more sustainable future? This is an excellent question and something that I've been thinking about a lot in my 22 years of teaching fashion design.
 
I do think that students of today hold a particular role in transforming the fashion industry into a more sustainable one. Even if the responsibility isn't solely theirs. The current industry has the majority of that responsibility, but nonetheless, I do think that we need to train the designers that we teach, in these new ways of doing things, opening them to completely new value systems, because that's what's going to make the difference.
 
And, I am happy to say that the students that we teach today already arrive very informed. They are concerned about climate change. They are often very aware of the ways that the fashion industry makes, and they are curious about what kind of difference they can make. So from an educator's perspective, that's a really great place to start.
 
It really is feeding their curiosity and asking questions together, like, how can we change this very complex system that is causing damage but also brings so much joy to people? I will say that working with students has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. Who is responsible for ensuring sustainability in fashion? Another really excellent question, and I will say that the responsibility is with everyone because all of us, both as citizens, but also then fashion brands, educational institutions like UTS, government departments and so forth all have a different role to play in changing the whole.
 
Here at UTS, for example, I will say that our responsibility as educators is to educate the next generation of the fashion industry to be more responsible, to be more sustainable, to be more informed and educated about the issues. Brands have a particular role to play in, transforming their supply chains into more sustainable ones. There is wide agreement now that regulation plays a really critical part.
 
And so that's where policymakers come in and have a role to play as well. But I think the critical issue is collaboration across the board. We as educational institution and a research institution have to work with fashion brands. We have to work with policymakers. And also fashion brands have to collaborate across with each other, which is quite different to how the fashion industry used to operate.
 
It is already happening. That's the really great thing to see. It's quite inspiring to see that companies that think of each other as competitors actually come together at the table and try and solve things together. So yeah, the responsibility is everybody's because we all have different kinds of agency in tackling the problem. And yeah, collaboration absolutely is the key.
 
That was all the questions for today. I hope you learned something new. Until next time, stay curious.