Circular Fashion: Design, Science and Value in a Sustainable Clothing Industry

About This Course

The fashion industry has a large influence on the global economy and is more and more known for its social and environmental impact. Everywhere, new initiatives sustainable are arising from recycling and upcycling to creating clothes from compostable materials. Circularity tough, is a complex phenomenon. What will the future bring us? Are we going to decompose our clothes in our own garden?

This online course is a comprehensive introduction to circular fashion, brought to you by roughly thirty different experts from both academia and practice. You will learn about the versatile task of transitioning towards circular fashion, from the unique collaboration between Wageningen University & Research, ArtEZ University of the Arts and many other experts.

This course will provide designers, retailers, scientists and all working at the industry or with an interest in fashion with holistic insights in the complex challenges of circular fashion, while engaging you to start the transition to circularity within your personal and/or professional practices. We will bring together art, design and science to move beyond an ego-centric approach of fashion and start from an ecosystems perspective. Learn the theory, understand the practice and start your own circular fashion journey. Join the movement towards a circular fashion industry!

What You Will Learn

After successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

• The difference between sustainability and circularity
  
  
  
  • Understand the difference between sustainability and circularity.
  
  
  • Analyse how identity is constructed through consumption.
  
  
  • Explain the shift from eco to ego in fashion.
  
  
  • Apply principles of design for circularity.
  
  
  • Reflect on design thinking approaches.
  
  
  
  


• Ecosystem circularity
  
  
  
  • Understand individual agency and organic collectives in fashion.
  
  
  • Critique small-scale circular solutions.
  
  
  • Explore ecosystems in nature as inspiration for circular systems.
  
  
  • Examine the challenges of governing the transition towards circularity from outsourcing countries.
  
  
  
  


• Closing the loop in fashion
  
  
  
  • Understand the complexity of textiles.
  
  
  • Evaluate the challenges and opportunities of textile recycling.
  
  
  • Explain the loop of organic and synthetic textiles.
  
  
  • Analyse the challenges posed by textile blends.
  
  
  • Apply principles of design for recycling and disassembly.
  
  
  
  


• Biobased innovation and new materialism
  
  
  
  • Learn about future raw materials.
  
  
  • Understand new production processes.
  
  
  • Analyse production capacity, automation and upscaling.
  
  
  • Forecast the role of biomaterials in fashion.
  
  
  • Debate fast fashion and online marketing.
  
  
  
  


• Business as crafting value
  
  
  
  • Understand circular business modelling.
  
  
  • Analyse circular business in the second-hand clothing market.
  
  
  • Explore a new economic paradigm for fashion.
  
  
  • Understand investment and acceleration.
  
  
  • Gain insight into blockchain technology.
  
  
  • Explain how blockchain can be used for transparency in the fashion value chain.
  
  
  • Understand fashion from a retail perspective.
  
  
  • Evaluate e-commerce and circular retail models.
  
  
  
  

Grow these skills

Learner Testimonials

"Great course, I think I learned a lot! I would definitely take another course related to sustainable fashion if it was offered."

"I loved this, I really did. I hope I can do more studies like this in the future."

"It was very interesting and rewarding. Happy with the scientific contributions of research and development for innovation."