A Study in Elderly Fashion and Zero Waste Clothing Design

This research focuses on the Kansei needs of elderly clothing, and juxtaposes contemporary topics of fashion design, sustainability, and environment protection. We aim to discuss the design of sustainable, environment friendly, and zero waste clothing for the elderly people. An important aspect of the future in fashion design is eco-fashion. Environmental awareness is increasingly becoming an important topic among the consumers, especially amidst the pollution and waste generation associated with the rise of fast fashion. In addition to environment protection, the current trends in eco fashion emphasize on sustainable development of the industry that is cost-friendly. This work serves as a testbed to incorporate the need of sustainability and the incentive for the fashion industry. Living in the age of severe environmental crisis and among the aging population, fashion designers are compelled to design to both minimize the environmental impact from design and manufacturing, and maximizing the comfort of the elderly consumers wearing the designs. As such, this research interrogates the development, history, production, consumption behavior, and environmental impacts of the fashion industry. Our interrogation leads us to the discussion on and development of clothing designs catering to the Kansei need of the elderly consumers via the use of appropriate colors and fabrics. Furthermore, the designs focus on sustainability from the drawing board-every piece of the fabrics is to be fully utilized. The zero-waste principle we employed helps us achieving the goal of minimizing the environmental impacts from clothing design and manufacturing. Our designs are inspired by the natures that are hard to access by the elderly people, who often face deterioration in flexibility and mobility. Despite of their aging bodies, the sceneries and plants in nature is an integral part of the memories of many people. The zero waste collection, Ageless Leaves, depicts nature by utilizing the naturally occurring red and green palette of plants to showcase the beauty in preserved nature, and portrays the need of sustainable development due to humans depleting precious natural resources. In addition to the colors, our zero-waste design principle fully utilizes the fabrics in clothing production, and are tailored to the flexibility of the elderly population to maximize the function of our clothes. Using the zero-waste design, we demonstrate the value of eco fashion and elderly fashion, and the incorporation of sustainability in the industry.