Alison Gwilt

Fashion and sustainability: repairing the clothes we wear

This chapter discusses and explores the role that design-led approaches can perform in encouraging people to (re)engage with clothing repair. Each year approximately 350,000 tonnes of used clothing is sent to UK landfills but research suggests that this figure could be significantly reduced if wearers were to actively and routinely repaired damaged clothes (WRAP 2012). As leaders within the fashion industry strive to improve the production of fashion clothing through cleaner/efficient/ethical processes, this chapter looks at the part that designers and consumers can play in utilizing garment life cycle extension strategies, as a way of reducing unnecessary textile waste.