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CHANGE WITHOUT BUYING: AN APPLICATION OF ADAPTABLE DESIGN IN APPAREL
Impact/Purpose:
Excess consumption of apparel is driven by the apparel industry to offer more styles at lower prices in shorter time and the consumers’ desire to change fashion. Environmental problems such as pollution, hazardous waste, and natural resource depletion are related to excess apparel consumption. To address the excess apparel consumption problem and extend the lifespan of apparel products, we will implement adaptable design in apparel and demonstrate that adaptable apparel will meet consumers’ needs to change while reduce overall production and consumption. We will accomplish three objectives in this project: a) design and produce adaptable apparel by using environmentally friendly materials; b) evaluate the adaptability, consumers’ acceptance, and cost of our design and product; and c) revise the design based on evaluation results and develop educational tool.
Description:
Female college students typically wear casual clothing on campus. To meet this need and make our design to be used more often and longer by female college students, we decided to focus on casual wear design. Cotton fibers, with relatively poor resiliency, are commonly used in casual wear, which is very popular on college campuses because of its comfort and easy care properties. Cotton also can be used in four seasons, and is especially appropriate in spring, summer, and autumn. Therefore, we decided to use organic cotton fibers in our garments.
Chemicals used in textile processing often include dyes and multiple finishes on the same fabric. Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) is the leading set of criteria in organic textile processing. Huntsman International LLC (The Woodlands, Texas) provided us with three GOTS approved dyes, together with the Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS). We assessed the human and ecological toxicity information of these three dyes based on the MSDS documents. We found that Novacron Blue FN-R and Novacron Yellow FN-2R have the least known adverse effects on human and environmental health, so we used these two dyes to dye our organic cotton fabrics.
Based on the properties, i.e., thickness and stretch, of the organic fabrics we selected, we designed two different patterns for the adaptable garment, and constructed two prototypes. Both prototypes made intensive use of attachable/detachable parts to allow the users to create their own way of wearing the garment for different needs, occasions, and styles.
Prototype 1 has a hood, a jacket, and a skirt. The jacket has a curved-v neckline. On the two side seams of the jacket, there are four zippers that can be used to adapt for wearers with different sizes or when the size of the wearer changes. The unzipped configuration is for a larger person, while the zipped configuration is for a smaller wearer. The sleeves can be detached from the jacket to make a vest for different wearing occasions or different seasons. The removable hood can be attached to the vest or jacket through snaps at armholes and shoulders. The detached hood can be unzipped to lay flat, and be worn as a capelet, scarf, or an off-the-shoulder decoration. The circular skirt can be attached to the vest or jacket at the hipline with snaps, or be worn separately at the waist. The skirt also can be worn around the shoulders as a cloak or poncho. In addition, the skirt can be worn as different styles of shirts through additional snaps.
The concept of modular design is used in prototype 2. This second prototype also has a hood, a jacket, and a skirt. All three are reversible, and made with many detachable parts using snaps as attaching/detaching joints, which will increase interchangeability. The geometric shapes of these detachable parts further maximize the interchangeability. These interchangeable parts can be considered as modular components. All the detachable parts are held together with bands. The parts can be put together to create many different looks and styles. Similar to prototype 1, the sleeves can be detached from the jacket to make a vest. The hood can be attached to the jacket or vest. The waist of the skirt can be adjusted for different sizes. The skirt can be attached to the jacket or vest to make a dress, or it can be worn separately. The skirt also can be converted from a flared skirt to a pencil skirt, and vice versa. In addition, the skirt can be worn as either a straight cape or a flared cape. The cape can be worn together with the jacket or vest, or separately. By being able to create different outfits, a consumer will be able to wear it throughout different seasons and for different occasions.
We designed a survey, focus group discussion and wear test protocols to evaluate the consumer’s acceptance and adaptability of our apparel prototypes. The three testing protocols have been approved by the University of Delaware Institutional Research Board (UD IRB) and the EPA Program Director of Human Research Ethics. We completed a focus group discussion with five female students. The preliminary analysis of the focus group discussion indicated that the adaptable apparel could decrease apparel discard, increase utilization, and promote longer lifespan of the garments. We will complete the survey and another focus group discussion with five additional female students, and wear test the garments in the next 2 weeks and report the results in the EPA Sustainable Design Expo in Washington, DC.