It’s excellent news to learn about the ambitions of the next generation in the area of sustainability and a compliment to HSLU that their Design Management curriculum puts the circular economy high on the agenda and aims at exchanging thoughts with the industry.

When reading this blog, you might have the same question: What is design management? As the Hochschule Luzern presents it, design management is a transdisciplinary activity around organizational needs. It aims to address both organizational and societal challenges significantly linked to industrial practice. So it’s a generic education not focused on the fashion industry, but the students saw the need for action in our industry and therefore invited small fashion labels like Le Picot to a co-design workshop.

The afternoon-long session was run by the students themselves, the initial focus was on the challenges the concept of circularity imposes on the textile industry. After identifying risk, rewards, and motivating factors, the students presented three possibilities to support the sector: using Canvas, creating an interactive online platform with a data toolkit for materials or a sourcebook for fibers and textiles, both digital and physical supporting both the design and the impact planning or reporting process.

My impression of the workshop was very positive. Circularity in the fashion industry is very complex. We are talking about a whole chain of processes from producing fibers or their raw materials to making, selling, reusing, recycling, or regenerating garments. Students sometimes were not aware of this complexity, but the energy and determination with which they approached the issues in our industry and the basic concept to develop instruments to support the local industry is worth a lot. Let’s hope that this was the beginning of a dialogue that will bring more sustainability to the Swiss textile and fashion industry.

– Pius