If I was to work further on this prototype I am now at the stage where I would get some input from possible users. Doing a few informal tests would most likely give me more information and some new perspectives to further develop my prototype. This would help me to get it to a stage where I can learn more from more “proper” testing.
After this development I would do a more extensive testing round to decide whether or not this is the right direction. I would anyways have new perspectives to bring to a different prototype, so my work would not be lost if I found that a different format would be necessary.
As I have continued working on the prototype I constantly find new needs and possible paths. For now I have focused on placing the prototype in a context which becomes part of the prototype. Instead of just developing the tool I have now made a webpage as an information source.
Eventually I started filling in my wireframes with content. I have chosen to not focus on writing texts and rather making titles which give an indicator of what would be there. This way I could have tested my prototype to get a “first impression” from someone without producing text that might not be needed.
I have created a structure which will work similarly to a storyteller page.
Header: There is a header on top for navigation.
What: first the user need to understand what this page does. Two sentences about the goal for this page is enough to communicate this fast.
Why: Why should the user care? Why should they use this page? Three main goals is mentioned with subpages linked it the user wants to read more.
How: How can I make a difference? This part is where I assume most user will spend the most time. It is an exploration of what I can do (as a consumer / designer) to reduce the environmental impact of fashion.
Engage: Call to action to send in feedback and/or taking part in challenges/competitions to create engagement around the page. This part would need more exploration and research to see what creates the most momentum and impact.
Footer: Footer where I can place the “boring” info. For those interested in going in depth, reading more complex resources, documentation etc. this is a natural place to look in combination with the header.
If I was to test this prototype I would interview 3-5 people of different age and try to explore what information they would expect, wish for and care about. In addition I would interview fashion designers to explore if they could use a page like this in their workflow.
After exploring what I want to communicate on paper I moved on to a Figma prototype. Here I explore which solutions are necessary to show enough information without becoming too overwhelming. I am also testing out different modes of designer-consumer.
I showed and discussed the first prototype with Mrs. Bachler. We found that the prototype need to be placed in a context/story. I will therefore also explore how the webpage can be designed to enhance the importance of the prototype.
As we were discussing more it becomes clear that the “societal” context also will matter a lot. Will this be a certification, “quality stamp” or just information bank? This would need more exploring than I can do this semester, but it should be mentioned.
I started working on sketches to understand what my process and exploration should look like. Making an (initial) flowchart for my own workflow and a few persona sketches got my creativity started. My MVP of my product will not be fully populated with the information it needs. This would take way too much time. Therefore I will focus on creating a shell of a product as a prototype. Ideally I will populate one “branch of information” to make it easier to see how it could all end up looking.
I also sketched some ideas for how the information can be presented to the user. By creating a “designer layer” and a “consumer layer” I want the information necessary for each group to be easily available. Still, a consumer should be able to also read and understand what the designers should think of and the opposite.
This thought sparked the idea that this eventually could become a certification of some sort. There are many different certifications (as discussed in last semester’s post about greenwashing) that do not really mean anything. By making the criteria easily available the brands who take sustainability seriously can get this information out in a trustworthy way. This can also work as an incentive for designers to really follow the guidelines of my product.
I have learned in my research that the fashion world needs a complete remodel to become sustainable. To produce slightly less “un-unsustainable” clothing isn’t enough if we keep selling (and buying) big amounts of it. Therefore I want to explore ways to take part of the fashion world that isn’t designing new clothing.
Save Your Wardrobe
The startup Save Your Wardrobe helps people to go shopping in their own wardrobes. It pairs together pieces of clothing in the users wardrobe, guides to find repair services and alteration services. This can help in reducing the feeling of need for something new.
Unmade
To tackle one of the biggest issues in the industry – waste as a result of overproduction – Unmade list demand directly to production. This means there is no “guessing” what the consumers want. The software allowed users to customize clothing before it is produced. The clothing is then made on demand and in smaller batches. With this customization the user will likely also love the product more, as we tend to like things we had part in creating more. This leads to willingness to repair and use until it is worn out.
One of fashion’s biggest issues: overproduction
Fæbrik
A “sewing collective” creating easy sewing patterns which can be altered to perfectly match your body ensuring longevity and keep-worthiness is booming in Norway. By promoting using second hand clothing that has nice fabric, but not a nice fit is a great way to salvage clothing before the last stop. In addition they sell surplus textile from already (quite) sustainable brands to salvage high quality textile in addition to enlighten the public about this issue.
The Norwegian sewing revolution: Women have sown their own “bunad” (traditional dress) of second hand clothing and textile.
Renting / second hand / resale
ThredUp, Tise, Rent the Runway, My Wardrobe and so many other companies are booming. There are issues to take into consideration here as well, eg. transport, getting “the feeling of sustainability” yet still over consuming and changing of trends, but these can be worked on. Helping in designing systems for these companies to be more profitable yet more sustainable would be highly interesting.
“Research carried out in Europe found that 42% of green claims were exaggerated, false, or deceptive” Harvard Business Review (HBR) writes (2022) about a “sweep” of websites carried out by the European Commission and national consumer authorities. They found this:
In 37% of the cases included vague terms like “conscious” and “eco-friendly”
In 57% of the cases there was no easily accessible evidence to back up the claims that were made
HBR found that customers realize and are aware of the gap between the claims and actually actions enough to impact their satisfaction levels with the companies. This carries out to affect their relationship with the products and it affects the economy for the company in an impactful way. However, the customers “only care to a point.” If a company is seen as a high quality, innovative etc. brand, the satisfaction levels of the customers were unsignificantly affected even if the company was perceived as greenwashing. This result should, according to HBR, still be read with caution as a bigger or later research could show a greater effect. (https://hbr.org/2022/07/how-greenwashing-affects-the-bottom-line)
How to avoid greenwashing, but still communicate sustainability
What HBR advices is that managers should pay equal attention towards their communicating their goals outwards and to their companies ability to achieve these. It is better as a company to promise something achievable and overachieve than the opposite. (https://hbr.org/2022/07/how-greenwashing-affects-the-bottom-line) This tactic can be seen in one of my previous posts about Northern Playground, and their communication outwards about how “no fashion is sustainable”. They still manage to communicate that their clothing is of the better alternatives if used right without risking a backlash for not being carbon neutral.
In addition to paying better attention to what is communicated outwards in statements, it can also be useful to use voluntary standards. E.g. EcoLabel Index (https://www.ecolabelindex.com) provides a vide variety of labels which can be used to legitimatize a companies claims. Here there is also room for mistakes, as many of the labels can be completely in-relevant or weak. Using recognizable and well known labels will likely give the best effect.
Avoiding greenwashing should be a high priority, but that doesn’t mean a company shouldn’t strive to reach high. As HBR writes it: “It may well be the case that they (ed. customers) are willing to forgive companies that tried and legitimately failed to implement their goals but customers might also be less forgiving towards those companies that attempted to cheat their way by exaggerating their credentials.” (https://hbr.org/2022/07/how-greenwashing-affects-the-bottom-line)
In this blog I will look into two design philosophies from two very different companies. What are the benefits of these strategies, and what are the challenges?
Northern Playground, “Our job is to make it easier and more fun to own less.”
Two main principles:
Duration (physical and non-physical)
Multi functionality (for all occasions and adventures)
Looks and functionality:
Northern Playground mainly uses one design strategy. This is designing with simple designs, multi functionality and keep-worthiness. Their design process is slow and never puts looks over functionality. Northern Playground never launch something new unless they belive it fills a hole in their collection and that it will stay a classic “forever.”
Quality:
The clothes from Northern Playground should have long lifetime and high quality through repairability, less chemicals, needing less washing and designing the garment first and then setting an appropriate price. The clothes should also be possible to recycle.
Supply chains:
Employees in their supply chain should have more than a living wage. They should have good lives and good working conditions. In addition there is full transparency in who Northern Playground partner with.
H&M Group, “…guide to designing more circular products.”
Three pillars, designing products to be:
used more
made to be made again
made from safe and recycled or renewable inputs
Looks and functionality:
According to H&M Group’s “Circulator Guide” they try to place each product in a “Frequency and Lifespan” diagram before they decide on materials etc. The default before they as themselves a few questions is wear monthly and lasting for 3 years. This is not particualary ambitious.
If we wear 6 garments (pants, undershirt, shirt, sweater, jacket + underwear/socks etc.) every day, one new outfit every day in the month, for 12 months a year that would mean you would have to buy and toss 2160 garments in 3 years. This is excluding pyjamas, home wear, workout clothes etc. If most of these clothes are then placed in H&M Group’s “Mid” category they are not that designed well for recyclability, and most will end up outside of that system anyways as recycling clothes is a very overwhelmed industry.
Quality
H&M Group has a different approach than Northern Playground when it comes to the quality of their clothes. They argue that clothes which are designed for being in the “Extensive” product category should have physical and some non-physical (eg. lovability) durability. However, products in the “Mid” and “Light” category should NOT be designed for durability, but rather recyclability. They at best put medium pressure on repairability and avoiding waste.
Supply chains:
Ad H&M Group is a giant in fashion is hard to get the overview of all the suppliers and working conditions. They are part of the Transparency Pledge.
Read more:
Design strategy of H&M Group: https://hmgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Circulator_Guide_v1.0.pdf
What to take from this?
Northern Playground is designing for “timelessness,” but will probably struggle to target people who want to express themselves through fashion with their muted colors and simple silhouettes.
Northern Playground designs every piece in the same spirit. This leads to transparency and trust for the customer
H&M Group design with different strategies for how to reduce the overall environmental impact. For as long as we produce clothes ment to only last a short while this is probably a good thing as it reduces emissions. ““Focusing on developing all products to be more durable could potentially lead to us using more resources than a garment requires.” However, this makes it more unclear for the customer what type of garment they are buying. It also drives prices down which lead to overconsumption.
In this post I will study how Northern Playground, a small clothing company, makes their production and business as little un-sustainable as possible. They belive no clothing company can be fully sustainable, but of course they can be better or worse. This is how they try to be better:
“Sustainable materials do not exist. Period.” This is how the text starts if you make two simple clicks (Menu > Environment) on the webpage of Northern Playground. This is surprisingly honest when we have gotten used to green labels with “Conscious” written all over on fast fashion giant H&M and many more. Northern Playground is a Norwegian company who is trying to change the textile industry in a way that has real impact.
One click on the menu button and Products and Environment is the equal size.
In the beginning of the company’s life Jo Egil Tobiassen, the brain behind it, thought sustainability was complicated, he tells E24. However, after educating himself he found that it isn’t “how” we produce clothing that is the main issue, it is “how much.” But if his company wants to have a real impact, they also need to grow. This is a real paradox for small, “sustaiable” brands. Tobiassen explains that one way they are doing this is avoiding sale and avoiding middle men. This way the earn more on fewer articles on clothing. (https://e24.no/det-groenne-skiftet/i/8Qkd4r/klesgrunderen-som-vil-at-du-skal-kjoepe-mindre-vil-vokse-mer)
Reducing clothing consumption
Lifetime service: Repairs are made easy by providing knowledge and tools to repair the garment yourself or it can be executed for free by the company. Northern Playground also takes care of recycling when the garment is truly worn out. Producing in only wool makes recycling much easier as this is a highly recyclable material. (https://www.northernplayground.no/en/lifetime-service)
Their business model includes the users: Northern Playground was tired of the guessing game most companies do when deciding on product design and the amount to produce. This leads to massive overproduction, and never-used garments ends at landfills. Northern Playground have developed a big user group who they get feedback from in the design, testing and decision phase. (https://www.northernplayground.no/en/content/our-model)
Slow fashion: Producing classic designs who lasts a long time and not releasing a new collection just because a new session arrived keeps the new for bying new things all the time down. Of course this is easier for a company producing wool garments to be used as basics. However, Northern Playground is actively working for owning garments who can serve multiple purposes to become a more accepted standard. (https://www.northernplayground.no/en/content/we-dont-need-collections)
In addition Northern Playground has an open communication about overconsumption as a problem, avoids discounts and design for high quality as a priority over low prices.
Reducing their footprint
Norther Playground of course design for reducing the enviornmental impact from each garment in other ways than ensuring a long lifetime for each garment. They also:
– produce partially (very) locally in Oslo, partially in Europe (at the only manufacturer in the world who fulfills Greenpeace’s environmental standards – only use (partially organic) natural materials – use recyclable packaging and no plastic – ensure a sustainable culture among employees – believes in and acts with transparency (https://www.northernplayground.no/en/environment)
This and the previous blog post are looking into two major reports about the state of sustainability in the fashion world. “The Business of Fashion Index 2022” is looking at the 30 largest companies in fashion and how they are doing over a variety of fields of sustainability.
“The Business of Fashion Index 2022” by The Business of Fashion
The Business of Fashion Index 2022 “examine the performance of the industry’s 30 largest publicly traded companies by revenue across three market segments: luxury, sportswear and high street (ed. ordinary clothes).” Although the original 15 companies from the last years report had some progress, this was “eclipsed” by the new additions’ inaction.
Business of Fashion (BoF) points at “limited accountability within the sector, poor-quality data and a lack of investment“ as some of the biggest obstacles. This is very clear when BoF writes that “some of the industry’s biggest players — including URBN, Skechers, Fila Holdings, Anta and HLA Group — provided little or no public detail about plans to tackle their environmental and social impact.”
Although this is quite dark, there are also positive news. Fast retailing had the biggest improvement (of 11 points) from last years report, showing some of the “technological innovation, policy cues and standardised reporting frameworks” in action. If the fashion industry can do more of this, if can lead to real change.
”The Index assesses companies’ progress towards ambitious 2030 goals across six impact categories: Transparency, Emissions, Water & Chemicals, Waste, Materials and Workers’ Rights.”
As we see in the figure, waste is one of the areas that has the lowest score overall. This is something “very easy” to work on by not overproducing (resulting in landfill material before it has even been in the store) and to use scrap products and cuttings in a mindful way. Transparency is also something that is also obvious to focus on as a smaller company as this is one of the advantages of being smaller.
For me it would be interesting to read the full report (behind a paywall) as a designer to make sure that I follow the parameters given by BoF. To take part in the politics of fashion would also be an impactful way of taking part of this world.
As I have gotten more into the topic of the sustainability of fashion, I have found some interesting reports with different takes. This and the next blogpost will summarize and highlight some of the most important finds of two reports. I will also mention how I can use these finds further on.
“Unfit, Unfair, Unfashionable” by Hot or Cool
Hot or Cool’s report “Unfit, Unfair, Unfashionable” showes the divide in consumption between high and low income countries and people. They found that “the richest 20% in the UK emit 83% above the 1.5-target.” At the same time, “74% of people in Indonesia live below sufficiency consumption levels of fashion.” On average the fashion footprint need to be reduced by 2030 by 60% among the high income countries of G20, 40% by the upper-middle income countries while the low income countries are already below the 1.5-degree limit. This divide between high and low income is both clear between countries and within countries.
Within a representative sampling of G20 countries they found that the lowest and second to lowest income quintile is responsible for respectively 6-11% and 10-13%. The second to highest and highest on the other hand is responsible for respectively 24-26% and 36-42%. In simpler words: “On average, the fashion consumption of the richest 20% causes 20 times higher emissions than that of the poorest 20%. This ratio varies substantially across countries, following levels of income inequality.” This debunks the idea that the poor is responsible for the emission because they by “cheap” clothes. They often get blamed in discussion about the emissions of fashion, but it is time that the rich scale down on their consumption.
As reducing the number of purchases of new clothes much (respectively 4 and 3 times) more effective than increasing the use time or (what is considered achievable through) decarbonization of the fashion industry, this should be the focus. (https://hotorcool.org/unfit-unfair-unfashionable/)
Consumtion/emission with no action taken and a sufficient scenarioConsumption within countries differs very much relating to income level
In a way this is positive news. Reducing the amount of garments of high income people is a task possible to asses for small companies. This can be done by producing high quality, interesting and lovable pieces that can play many parts in a person’s wardrobe. If we can produce such pieces they can replace the feeling if need of new pieces. The other end, producing lower-emission garments for persons with low income, is a much more complex task. This needs to be assessed by the fast fashion companies and the fashion culture itself. This also needs to be done, but it won’t be as effective as changing the behavior of high income persons.
Another interesting find to consider is that in the UK, Italy and Germany the richest 20% need to reduce their footprint of fashion consumption by respectively 83%, 75% and 75%. However, in the fashion nation France this number is substantially lower, “only” 50% (https://hotorcool.org/unfit-unfair-unfashionable/). This point to the issue that fashion consumption is highly dependent on culture. “French women” is a trademark in fashion, known and praised for using fewer, versatile and timeless pieces instead of indulging in micro and fast trends.
