Green Gown Awards 2014 - Courses and Learning - University of the Arts London - Highly Commended

London College of Fashion: Weaving sustainability through flexible learning fashion courses

London College of Fashion’s (LCF) Programme Director, Jessica Saunders , has woven her passion and knowledge of sustainable fashion through its flexible (part time) courses in Fashion Media, Design & Realisation, Business, Branding and Visual Merchandising. Students tackle realistic sustainability briefs and graduate with the skills to change the fashion industry for the better.

Sustainability is integrated throughout the degrees. Students study human rights, political and cultural limitations and practices in countries where farming for fashion and factories produce garments. Students are marked against their integration of sustainability in their projects.

Business students are particularly engaged, meaning that a new generation of fashion business graduates are entering the industry with a sustainable conscience and the skills to create change. A graduate from 2013 has now set up her own business in upcycling fabrics and garments and another commented on her “passion to make this a key element of my design process.”

Top 3 learnings

1 Integrating sustainability into the curriculum enables graduates to set up sustainable businesses, greening the industry and changing the market
2 Many students naturally integrate sustainability into other work going forward
3 Students question their direct impact through their work at university and beyond, as well as their indirect impacts as consumers.

What the judges say ...

An exciting and imaginative project encouraging greater social and environmental sustainability thinking around fashion and potentially business students. Broad in scale and practical in outcome.

What it means to win ...

“University of the Arts London is a place to explore, research, teach and learn practices and processes that contribute to the furthering of societies and cultures. We seek, through the arts, to enable community and individual engagement in practice. Winning a Green Gown Award recognises our commitment to social and ecological design and amplifies the impacts of our collective ambitions towards a sustainable future.”

Nigel Carrington, Vice-Chancellor

Videos

• London College of Fashion: Weaving sustainability through flexible learning fashion courses (click to hide)