Developing users design literacies to support extended clothing use and reuse | Jo Cramer

In the May’s Engage with Ideas session, Jo Cramer in her talk titled Developing users’ design literacies to support extended clothing use and reuse will propose a scheme that allows users to modify second-hand clothes. Her talk is based on a chapter titled Use Forecasting: Designing Fashion Garments for Extended Use.

Jo’s idea is that if users can refashion the clothes, there is a better chance to extend the use of these clothes rather than being discarded. So, to enable users to refashion the clothes, Jo proposed that the clothes be designed in a way that makes it easier for the users to restyle, remodel or remake them. To enable refashioning clothes by users, Jo argues for designers to rethink how the garments can be designed to enable this to take place in the future. Thus, incorporating possible refashioning of the garments will make this process easier for future users. This means that designers will need to consider how garments are designed in anticipation of ongoing use and reuse. By incorporating capacity for repair, adaptation, refashioning, and redistribution into garment design, designers can enable extended and more intensive use, thereby postponing obsolescence and disposal. Jo suggested that by framing garments as entities with multiple potential futures, using forecasting positions design as a key contributor to the transition from linear fashion systems toward more circular and enduring modes of fashion production and use.

Nevertheless, the users who would like to refashion the existing clothes will need to have a certain level of design literacy skills that will enable them to undertake this task. For example, they will need to understand the basic construction of clothes and have the skills to enable them to modify the existing garments.

Jo has a background in fashion design practice and entrepreneurship. She works in tertiary fashion education and research. Her research focuses on the role of design in sustainability transitions in the textiles sector, particularly debates around circular economy models and sustainable clothing consumption shaped by policy, industry, academia, and public discourse. Jo is especially interested in how aesthetics and extrinsic factors, such as trends, influence clothing longevity and everyday wear practices.

Reference

Cramer, Joanne (2021). Use Forecasting: Garments for Extended Use. Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan; Gardetti, Angel Miguel (Red.). Sustainable Design in Textiles and Fashion. s. 85-104. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2466-7_5