NZ Fashion Schools Are Championing A More Sustainable Future. What Will It Look Like?

As the need to imagine alternative fashion futures becomes increasingly urgent, New Zealand’s fashion design courses are adapting. How do academics and students forecasting the increase of sustainable fashion practice want the future to look?

Defining “sustainable fashion” is difficult.

When applied to a label, without any further credentials, the term “sustainable” is merely a rhetorical flourish. Without clear context, its use is an attempt to sway people into a reassured, guilt-free purchase with the vague conjuring of the colour green.

For consumers attempting to make informed decisions, the lack of a clear definition for “sustainable” is confusing. It buzzes, drowning out legitimate information that discloses the origins and impacts of a given garment.

But, in more collegial realms, this broadness offers opportunity.

Academia is forever in dialogue about definitions. For design departments witnessing the harms of our global ultra-fast fashion economy, “sustainable fashion” is an umbrella term to shelter in while imagining, reviving and prioritising alternatives.

Sue Prescott, programme leader and senior fashion lecturer at the School of Design at Massey University in Wellington, says there has been a sharp increase in student engagement with sustainable fashion practices over the past 10 years. The latest cohort certainly wants to contribute to an industry shift.

“They feel a sense of responsibility. They sometimes feel a bit hopeless but that’s not the overriding feeling ... It’s one of responsibility and they want to drive positive change,” says Sue.

This sentiment is unsurprising.

The deadly collapse amplified consciousness of fast fashion’s social and environmental impacts for those previously alienated from the supply chain. It also led to the launch of the global non-profit Fashion Revolution and created a flurry of investigative articles and documentaries about the fast-fashion industry throughout the 2010s.

The feeling of responsibility also reflects anxieties felt among younger generations. A literature review from Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures released in May 2023 asserted rangatahi in New Zealand felt a lack of action on climate issues was impacting their wellbeing.

In response to the climate emergency, young people commonly expressed “serious concern that society is not doing enough to protect the natural environment or the planet.” The review also found a desire among young people for environmental management strategies “underpinned by Te Tiriti principles.”

Globally, the textile sector emits 2-8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and uses 215 trillion litres of water per year. Jacinta Fitzgerald, Mindful Fashion’s chief executive, told Viva in September that Auckland’s Redvale landfill received 70 trucks of clothing waste a week.

This poses a tricky problem for fashion design programmes. How do you prepare climate-conscious students for a global industry that contributes to this crisis?

Across the country, from Tāmaki Makaurau to Ōtepoti, academics and students are working hard to forge a local fashion future that spotlights sustainable design practices. The definitions are broad, from managing waste streams to circular design and centring indigenous practitioners.

Whitecliffe College

The faculty at Whitecliffe is tightly knit. Their shared office, which sits adjacent to the student workroom, is a site of discussion and development. They describe their curriculum and practice of sustainability as a group.

However, the faculty says its vision for sustainable design goes far beyond this.

Tannaz Barkhordari highlights the attention of those working within the global supply chain.

“Sustainable is not just about the material but the people we need to look after – if we look after people they can look after the environment.”

Susan Barter also considers the experience and learnings of individual students as a pillar of the course.

“For me, sustainability is also about them and their development holistically as a person.”

The courses involve discussion and implementation of art and social theories too – from feminisms to decolonisation to concepts of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Giles Peterson cites local designer Jeanine Clarkin, artist Te Rongo Kirkwood, influential collective The Pacific Sisters, weaving/raranga teacher Paia Swanson Terepo, designer Shona Tawhiao, Doris du Pont (ONZM) and designer Dr Bobby Campbell Luke (who is also a senior lecturer with AUT’s School of Art & Design) as stewards influencing the school’s approach.

While students do investigate design that reduces waste, encourages regenerative sources for materials and addresses harms within current supply chains, Giles says building up a theoretical, socially conscious and historically informed approach is key for these students.

“All that encourages them to be critical citizens of the planet which is really important,” says Giles Peterson.

“It’s about going back to the roots.”

The faculty’s keen drive to sow these seeds is delightfully literal.

Tucked behind their Symonds St campus, among towering high-rises and the concrete surrounds, there is a small patch of green.

Students and staff have worked to clear weeds and rubbish to plant seedlings, supplied by the previous head of school, Belinda Watt. Eventually, the plants will provide colour for botanical dyes. Madder root will supply the school with a spectrum of orange. Woad leaves will provide an ocean of blues. Weld flowers will produce sunshiny yellows.

Those young gardeners won’t be among those who enjoy the eventual harvest – but it’s an ongoing project that the faculty will tend to for future designers.

Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington

The fashion programme at Wellington’s biggest university is uniquely positioned with the School of Design Innovation. It’s especially interdisciplinary, with subjects like fashion design, animation, game design, industrial design and communication design.

In their first year, all students entering the school begin with an overview of these disciplines – even if they know they want to study Fashion Design Technology for their major.

Nan O’Sullivan, who heads the School of Design Innovation at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, says the concept of sustainability is consistent across these courses. She emphasises the school’s encouragement for students to consider sustainability as a verb, not a noun.

“[The core papers aim] to make it more of an action than a philosophy.”

Nan notices that, after taking the core courses and entering their second year, fashion students are particularly keen to work across the Design for Social Innovation programme too.

“So, they’re doing sustainability, accessibility, social justice, which are all parts of addressing issues within fashion.”

This has resulted in some shifts in the school. For one, the aim of producing social awareness is key.

“For us, we’re not trying to produce those design heroes, in a way that has historically been done.”

The school has also leaned into transition design, an approach popularised by Terry Irwin that acknowledges the need to address “wicked problems” (see: climate change, depletion of natural resources and widening inequality) through design that challenges existing paradigms and leads to new futures.

Nan says this approach allows students to face huge problems within the global fashion industry with assuredness.

“It teaches you to put a pin in something. I think that’s a really strong concept for students – it’s not to overwhelm but to see the size of it and to start somewhere.”

The shifts within the design school in recent years, Nan says, have been empowered by the steady introduction of mātauranga into the curriculum. She points to Whakapapa Design, a core paper for first-year students – the paper aims to explore ethical behaviour and the consequences of design through tikanga like whakawhanaungatanga and manaakitanga.

No student will graduate “without having actually seen and experienced diverse knowledge and diverse systems,” says Nan.

The interdisciplinary approach, and the focus on the social impacts of design, often lead to interesting projects that tackle system design. Students enjoy reimagining the way clothing might move locally to eliminate harmful production methods, decrease emissions and increase accessibility.

One of these projects explores a system in which clothing is exchanged in a profitless, circular, community wardrobe.

Of course, there are also highlights in fashion design. Nan points to an award-winning project from student Ella Fidler. The young designer won the Rising Talent Award at the Mindful Fashion Awards. The hero piece of the winning ensemble was a crochet vest, almost resembling fur, spun from a yarn that connected various scrap fabrics – saved from the offcuts from pattern cutting.

Massey University Wellington

At Massey, the state of the global fashion industry is discussed early.

“When we start talking about it in year one, as we have done for many years, we talk about how fashion is in crisis. We don’t beat around the bush,” says Sue Prescott.

As the programme leader and a senior lecturer in Fashion at the School of Design at Massey, Sue’s interest in earth-conscious design is both professional and personal. In September, she won the Material Innovation category at this year’s Mindful Fashion Circular Design Awards for a colour-blocked raincoat made from retired sailcloth.

In design courses, Sue says they immediately name “the beast” of fast fashion. They begin by unpacking this dominating system before they move on to consider other possibilities.

These alternative fashion systems include couture and luxury fashion (which, though elite, work to preserve handcrafting and intricate design techniques), circular fashion, digital fashion, direct-to-consumer garments, local manufacturing, rental and subscription services and secondhand hand and vintage economies.

Most students come into the degree with climate awareness, Sue says, so they’re speaking to the converted (she points out that many of them were part of secondary school strikes for climate emergency action). She adds that in the past 10 years, she’s noticed a “sharp increase in student engagement because they realise the planetary havoc that we’re facing.”

“[They’re] aligning their creative expression with environmental stewardship,” Sue says. “I think it matters more to this generation than I’ve ever seen.”

Projects that emerge within the curriculum are particularly interested in circular design.

One student has investigated the potential for fabric biologically engineered to grow and repair itself. Another has worked to revive the handcrafting techniques utilised within their whakapapa.

Plenty of examples were also on show at Kahuria: New Zealand Fashion Week last year: El Reilly’s collection “Zero” showcased innovative and playful designs created with meticulous no-waste patterns.

“Sustainable design is not solely about the process of making,” El said, explaining her learned approach to sustainability. “I believe the main principles which support the success of a sustainable design are the functionality and emotional longevity of a garment.”

Ara Te Pūkenga Institute of Skills and Technology Canterbury

Sustainability starts at a molecular level at Ara, says fashion tutor Bridget McKendry. In her textile class, students advance their understanding of sustainability by building a glossary of fabric and fibre samples. They research their properties in depth.

“We evaluate how sustainable each material is across its whole lifecycle, including its biological and chemical origins to social and ecological impacts.”

The course also aims to paint a complex picture of our current fashion industries – guest speakers like slow fashion designer Steven Junil Park 박준일 are contrasted with professionals from big supply chains.

Tackling textile waste in a learning space full of mess and mistakes, Bridget says, is tricky. They receive deadstock donations, increasingly consisting of synthetic materials, to make design training more accessible for students.

This has turned the school’s attention to prioritising the use of off-cuts.

“We don’t let [waste] leave the building. We have these huge bins and all of the waste goes in there. Avant-garde class in particular benefits from those bins of waste. The first materials we ask them to consider for their creations is from those textile bins.”

Bridget says this avant-garde class, which allows for more conceptual design, is especially interesting for students responding to sustainability.

Mima Lewis Gourdie is one such student to impress on this brief. For her entry into the Hokonui Fashion Awards, Mima created a billowing puffer.

The encasing shell of the jacket was constructed from six months worth of soft plastic materials gathered from her flat (the collection was originally intended for drop off at their local supermarket). The garment was inspired by red-carpet extravagance – the most obvious comparison is Gigi Hadid’s red Versace coat from the 2022 Met Gala.

“I wanted to use the show-stopping scale of the garment to highlight the size of the problem and emphasise the size of the solution,” said Mima.

The suffocating, circularly focused coat, communicating both the perils of plastic and potential of reuse, won the upcycling category at the Hokonui Fashion Awards.

Bridget says the embrace of more sustainable design principles has been driven by students like Mima, who have worked hard to drive change in the school.

Otago Polytechnic

Tracy Kennedy, a principal lecturer at the School of Design and an iD Dunedin Board member, has been with Otago Polytechnic for 26 years. In that time, there has been one constant in sustainable fashion practices – change.

Even in the past five or 10 years, the academic has noted a shift in focus. Instead of primarily attempting to reduce waste, students are looking at the need for bigger changes in the supply chain.

“[Textile waste is] still very important but it’s almost like the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff ... More and more, we’re looking at putting people and planet at the centre and working in a circular way.”

Students are encouraged to focus on what they can control as designers, which includes “where your fabrics come from, who makes your clothes, how they’re distributed, how they’re sold, how much you make and the end life”.

Tracy says the school frequently points to examples of brands and groups advancing circular practices and local manufacturing – Kowtow is a brand that comes to mind, while initiatives such as Mindful Fashion and the Textile Advisory Group also offer good examples.

Tracy says the school also looks to developments overseas that might affect the current systems in place and the work of designers and creatives in New Zealand.

Currently, Tracy is particularly interested in the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR). This regulation was introduced into the EU in July. The biggest component of the law is the introduction of a digital product passport, which states that products shipped into the EU should clarify their technical performance, materials and origins, recycling capabilities, environmental impacts and any substances of concern.

“It’s going to affect Temu and Shein and those types of companies in a really big way,” says Tracy.

For student Daniel Bradley, study has expanded his understanding of sustainability and influenced his hopes for the future of fashion in New Zealand

“I feel like we should try to bring more of the making back to New Zealand ... It’s also trying to validate a higher price point. When I was making a T-shirt, it cost me $50 – without taking into account my time.”

NZ’s fashion future

The last semester of the year is currently wrapping up. Fashion students across the country are finalising their designs for submission and curating graduate collections (as of writing AUT has sent out its invitations for the graduate show in November).

Many of them will also produce reports detailing the careful, sustainable fashion techniques that have informed their designs. They’re attaching a qualifying label to their pieces, asserting how they’ve lessened impacts and why that is so important to their design practice.

This work should not be esoteric, Giles Peterson says. It has to expand beyond campuses.

“We can’t just expect these students to be the change. It has to be everybody in the whole fashion chain, media, society, consumers, educators, government, legislation – all of it has to work together to actually halt the climate crisis and ecological crisis that’s facing the planet.”

Madeleine Crutchley is a multimedia journalist for Viva and premium lifestyle and entertainment at The New Zealand Herald. She covers stories relating to fashion, culture and food and drink, from her hometown of Auckland. Recently, she’s written about fashion design in the climate emergency, vintage fashion and a youth-focused fashion week.

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