Transformation through education
Author | Kay Liu, Education Director and Hannah Lane, Strategic Director of Partnerships and Communications of Redress
In a resonating quote in a recent Business of Fashion article, London College of Fashion lecturer Noorin Khamisani said, “We have to look at education because we’re still training designers to work in an industry that doesn’t work for the future.” This beautifully captures the vision that has driven the education aspect of the Redress Design Award as it has grown and flourished, gaining traction year on year since our launch in 2011.
Over these last nine years, and particularly the latter few as the competition has become truly global, we have been thrilled to witness a growing understanding of sustainable design techniques, as well as a greater awareness of issues and the need to transform the industry, among students and emerging designers. This is complemented by an increase in action on the industry side, with businesses finally implementing circular methodology into their supply chains. The Redress Design Award has evolved to keep ahead of these changes, with a stronger than ever focus on circular design in the 2019 cycle.
Drawing on Redress’ and our partners’ expertise in the circular economy, and newly welcoming the esteemed Ellen MacArthur Foundation as our Knowledge Partner for this cycle, we raised the bar once more for emerging designers and introduced four circular design strategies into the application process, whilst simultaneously expanding our education resources on designing for circularity. With the Redress Design Award already attracting the best sustainably-minded emerging designers from around the world, this added dimension has already proven to be a valuable tool for both designers and judges of the competition.
To our free-access online LEARN platform, this year we added the topic Design for Longevity to further engage educators, students and designers on the need to consider circularity long before the end-of-life stage, and the challenges and opportunities that come with designing garments to be kept in use longer.
In addition to this, we have been thrilled to work more closely than ever with our global education partners, who form a vital part of our outreach. Our workshops for students, designers and educators, focused on circular fashion design and how to transform theory into practice, have been hosted at Hong Kong Design Institute; SCAD Hong Kong; Shanghai International College of Fashion and Innovation (a subordinate school under Donghua University) in Mainland China; and Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. We have also been working in partnership with IFA Paris on the development of a new Fashion Sustainability BA programme, an exciting development bridging circular theory and practice with mainstream fashion curriculum development.
As we look ahead toward our 10th anniversary next year, and reflect on the evolution of the competition, it is clear that lasting, systemic change needs to start with education. We are proud that the Redress Design Award can be a vehicle for change, as we continue to focus on providing the best emerging designers with the tools they need to help transform the fashion industry.
This article originally appeared in the Redress Design Award 2019 Magazine.