For a Sustainable Fashion Future: CoE is celebrating wins

5 April 2024

As it enters its second year of operations, the Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Fashion + Textiles is celebrating education and research wins.

Feet in sneakers standing on a wall in front of blue sky, person appears to be wearing a large piece of plastic that is floating in the breeze.

As we accelerate into 2024, the Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Fashion + Textiles - a partnership between UTS and TAFE NSW - is achieving milestones. The Centre has a mission to grow the capacity of the Australian fashion industry for a sustainable future, offer industry-focused education and research, and build a community of sustainable fashion advocates to aid in this mission. As it enters its second year of operations, the Centre is celebrating education and research wins.

Short courses thrive

First, the Centre is thrilled to announce that it has over 100 graduates of its Intro to Fashion + Sustainability short course. The course was created by sustainable fashion experts and educators, features industry innovator guest speakers, and is designed to give the Australian fashion industry a shared language and understanding of sustainability impacts and opportunities in the sector. Centre Director Dr Lisa Lake says, “we’ve had brilliant feedback from participants, especially on the industry guests and the sheer depth of information provided in the online course”.

What is even more exciting, however, is that we are seeing our alumni working in a large number of Australian fashion brands, seeing them at industry events, and watching their knowledge have a genuinely positive impact on their businesses.

Following the success of this course, the Centre has just launched its second short course, Writing a Fashion Sustainability Strategy, with classes starting this May. Developed by the renowned sustainable fashion expert Dr Clara Vuletich, at the end of this 4-week workshop-style course, participants will walk away with a written draft of a sustainability strategy that is relevant to their business. Also coming this year is a range of short courses designed to upskill industry practitioners on the software program CLO3D, which enables reduced sampling time and waste through its realistic renditions of designs, patterns, and draping, as well as a course on upcycling.

Industry partnerships

The Centre is also celebrating the commencement of its first industry research partner, The Volte. This peer-to-peer designer dress rental company has engaged researchers at the Centre to measure the true sustainability impact of its business, and also undertake qualitative interviews with lenders and borrowers to understand whether and how this business model supports the enjoyment of the beauty and magic of fashion through rental rather than ownership.

Centre Director, Dr Lisa Lake, says “We're so excited that an innovative company like The Volte – which is pushing the boundaries and challenging what fashion consumption looks like – is our first official research partner.” Another noteworthy aspect of the project is the coming together of faculties and expertise in the research team. Headed by the Centre’s Research Director, Associate Professor Timo Rissanen from UTS School of Design, the project includes Associate Professor Maruf Chowdhury from the UTS Business School and Dr Taylor Brydges from the Institute of Sustainable Futures. As Dr Lake explains, “The challenges sustainability and climate change present are incredibly complex, and the way through must be through collaboration with industry, and with experts in varying fields.”

The Centre remains steadfastly focused on industry partnerships and collaborations. It relies on the insights from its Industry Advisory Group – twelve members from the industry including peak industry bodies, retailers, designers and entrepreneurs – to test education and research concepts, and is actively seeking more industry research partners to test concepts that challenge the status quo of fashion design and production. The Powerhouse is also represented in this group, and has supported the Centre’s work in unique ways.

Four panelists sitting on chairs. — Sydney Design Week

The Centre of Excellence co-delivered events with the Powerhouse in Sydney Design Week 2023 including the Future of Fashion Materialised, which featured fashion designers Gary Bigeni and Louise Sharpe from MJ Bale, who were invited to create a garment to be knit in real time on the UTS Shima Seiki Wholegarment Seamless Knit Machine. Dr Lake led a conversation among the designers and Centre academic Dr Doris Li, who has a specialty in seamless knitwear, where they discussed the potential of onshoring some Australian fashion production with the assistance of advanced manufacturing equipment. Dr Lake also hosted a panel discussion on Circular Fashion Technologies, interviewing designers and experts on the latest in sustainable material and production, and participated in Digital Sampling with FashTech Lab, with the support of the Australian Fashion Council.

The Powerhouse's Sydney Design Week also led to a fortuitous meeting between the Centre and a sustainable material supplier, MOSSSY. The supplier held the Thread Exhibition in the same space as another UTS research centre, the Material Ecologies Design Lab. As a result of this meeting, the Centre has now procured ex-display materials from the exhibition including silkworm cocoons, pineapple fibre, and the various stages of material from reclaimed fishing net, to rPET pellets, to polyester made from rPET. MOSSSY also worked with the Centre to create sample cards for 50 sustainable materials to be housed in the Centre’s sustainable materials library. The Centre is currently seeking funding to fully develop the library, and once it is established, students and industry will have the opportunity to view a wide variety of sustainable materials that are often hard to access.

The Centre of Excellence has also played a role alongside the Tech Central Creative Industries Steering Committee in a scoping study of the creative industries within the Tech Central precinct. The Steering Committee, chaired by UTS and with members including the the Powerhouse, UTS, TAFE NSW, the Australian Fashion Council and NSW Government, launched the final report, Advancing a Creative Industries Precinct for Sydney, in April 2023, finding that our precinct houses over 3,000 creative industries. Many of the key recommendations from that report build upon the work of the Centre and the Tech Central Creative Industries Steering Committee members, with all institutions committed to securing and growing a strong creative, cultural heart in our precinct.