Circular Fashion: The New Roles of Designers in Organizations Transitioning to a Circular Economy

Abstract

To tackle global sustainability challenges of the Fashion Industry and ensure long-term viability, companies have slowly started integrating circular approaches. This paper explores if and how fashion designers can aid the transition towards a circular economy. For this purpose, 15 interviews with ten fashion designers working in medium and large international fashion companies and five key expert informants were conducted. The results are summarized in the ORFDCE model (Organizational Roles of Fashion Designers for Circular Economy) and suggests designers can take up three central roles in the transition process, if they expand their sustainability-related knowledge and are supported by four central systemic organizational changes. The model enables companies to identify their specific standing in the transition process and develop designer training and support measures aimed at realizing their designers’ full potential. The article also issues several recommendations for further research, to enable the transition from linear to circular fashion.

Keywords:

• circular fashion
• circular economy
• fashion designer
• organizational role
• circular design
• systems thinking

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Dr. Hope Witmer, Senior Lecturer in Leadership and Organization and Director, Leadership for Sustainability Master Program, Malmö University, for providing valuable guidance and comments. Moreover, some of this research was conducted as part of a master thesis written in cooperation with Julian Mühlmeier, M.A. in Leadership and Organization, so thank you Julian for your contribution. We would also like to thank all the 15 participants of this study for the time they dedicated and rich insights; thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

M. Cristina Dan

M. Cristina Dan, Contextual Fashion Designer, Lecturer, Researcher and the founder of SOLVE, an innovation studio in design and sustainability. She designed in 2016 the world's first circular and multifunctional fashion collection – Omdanne. She is also an assisting teacher at Malmö University, Sweden, within the Leadership for Sustainability master’s programme.

Thomas Østergaard

Thomas Østergaard, Associate Professor, VIA Design, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Denmark. Thomas is part of both the Research Centre for Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Sustainable Development and the Research Centre for Creative Industries and Sustainable Development at VIA. In 2019 he was an Affiliated Researcher at ELISAVA.