Over 100 Seamless members and supporters have already joined our circular design training. Built on the 'Refashioning' circular design guide for clothing brands which was led by RMIT University’s School of Fashion and Textiles, the course introduced the principles of circular clothing design and provided practical starting points for organisations to integrate circular thinking.
Our introductory Seamless Circular Clothing Design Foundations training has helped more than 100 participants to understand the importance of materials, use, durability and end of life options early on in the clothing design process, to harness the potential of a circular clothing model and significantly reduce the 222,000 tonnes of clothing that goes to Australian landfill each year.
More than 20 designers are now going on to participate in the in depth Seamless Circular Clothing Design Implementation course to gain practical, technical skills in circular clothing design. Designers from Seamless member organisations including David Jones, M.J. Bale, The Sussan Group, THE ICONIC, Universal Store and Zimmermann, through to Berlei and uniform provider, IVE Group, will get hands-on experience in redesigning a garment using circular design principles.
"Awesome presentation and discussion, so much insight. It’s such a challenge, especially for those of us running micro businesses, and working together, we are definitely stronger." Training participant
Key insights from Refashioning
Seamless circular clothing design training is built on Refashioning: Accelerating Circular Product Design at Scale (Refashioning), an innovative circular design guide for all clothing brands, no matter the scale. It was produced by a collaboration led by RMIT University’s School of Fashion and Textiles and delivered in partnership with Country Road Group, A.BCH World and Julie Boulton Strategy and Sustainability.
Images courtesy of Refashioning: Accelerating Circular Product Design at Scale
The Refashioning Circular Design Method is a comprehensive, tested approach to circular design. It focuses on all of the steps that a designer must take to design for circularity – design, document and deliver. Designing for circularity covers product purpose, material strategies, use and end of life planning, as well as documentation and implementation.
To achieve full circularity, circular design processes must extend beyond selecting materials to cover the entire lifecycle of a product and the system it operates in. For circular clothing design, the lifecycle stages are raw materials, manufacturing, cycles of use, and decommissioning and end of life.
At the heart of the Refashioning method are the three principles of circular clothing design: using safe, recyclable or renewable inputs; products are used more; and are made to be made again. To achieve this, a circular designer will need to move beyond the current processes of design.
