You have all probably been hearing chit-chat about Zero Waste Design—I know I have—so I figured I would investigate and try to clarify what exactly it is.
Mark Liu's Zero Waste Fashion
A great info-savvy website, The Vine, happens to be doing a special series on their fashion tab that investigates different methods of eco and sustainable fashion. The first piece highlights and defines Zero Waste!
As you can tell from its name, the goal of Zero Waste is to prevent waste from occurring in the process of creating a garment. But according to The Vine,
“In commercial factories when garments are cut around 20% of the fabric is wasted through scraps. Zero Waste designers are using technical and conceptual advances in pattern making, producing garments that use all of the fabric selvedge to selvedge.”
Timo Rissanen
Although other countries such as Australia and New Zealand have been working on Zero Waste techniques far before we have caught on in the US, our country has been making strides. Timo Rissanen is New York’s first professor of sustainability and he has integrated Zero Waste into the curriculum at Parsons The New School of Design .
With such amazing sustainable innovation like this, the question of sustainability cannot be left unanswered. I can’t wait to see more and more fashion school students emerge as designers with the tools and the education to create a more environmentally-friendly fashion industry on a healthier planet.
If you are interested in learning more about Zero Waste, check out the first international Zero Waste exhibition, “YIELD: Making Fashion Without Waste.” Rissanen is working on it with Holly McQuillan, a Zero Waste expert out of New Zealand. The exhibit opens in New York this coming September.
Fashion That Gives Back 