PAD. Pages on Arts and Design

6-16

Authors: Gianni Montagna & Maria Antonietta Sbordone

The theme of PAD Issue 22, titled “Fashion and Textile Ambivalences”, considers the nature of the changes taking place through the sharing of testimonies, case studies, as well as theoretical and design elaborations on emerging issues. These not only affect current and future constraints but also configure the possibility of different scenarios in the fashion and textile sectors.

42-68

Authors: Gina Nadal Fernandez

This paper examines how sensory perception can elicit emotional experience to textiles. The Repertory Grid Technique, a qualitative tool, is used to analyse the bi-polar constructs generated by the participants at the time to evaluate the sensory perception of twelve woven textiles. The first section examines and discusses current debates on emotional experience through artefacts, highlighting differences in the terminology used and points of agreement; notably that emotional experience refers to the intangible meanings, associations and connections that an individual transfers onto their object during their relationship. Emotional experience implies that the object has an emotional significance and becomes a vessel for past events and experiences. The second part looks at the evidence generated during the practice-based investigation of this research. A three-domain framework – sensory, cognitive and emotional domains – was created based on the literature review to categorise the bi-polar constructs provided by the participants. The data shows that tactile sense has a higher rate of eliciting emotional experience when evaluating woven textiles.

87-109

Authors: Debora Giorgi, Renato Stasi, Margherita Tufarelli, Maria Claudia Coppola

The contribution takes part in the vast panorama of research and initiatives to investigate the way for a more sustainable, ethical, and democratic fashion system. The Prato District is acknowledged as “the textile district par excellence” (Becattini, 2000) thanks to its profound link to environmental sustainability throughout its history. The district stands out since the Middle Ages for its ancient recycling techniques paired with its traditional figures, such as “cenciaioli”. Today the tradition has been reinterpreted in a modern key and strengthened by the birth of several new firms dedicated to the production or processing of recycled and regenerated fabrics. The growing awareness of consumers on ethical and environmental issues offers this survey the possibility to suggest a development path for the circular textile industry to face the transition into the New Normal.

129-153

Authors: Beata Hamalwa

A variety of sustainable fashion trends as an economic and ethical concept from the design and consumer perspective through sustainable materials and production processes to the product face challenges worldwide. Sustainability is an approach for design and development processes pinpointing not only on environmental but also social, and economic factors, whereby significant global improvements are seeded in the minimum waste and slow fashion production. The colonial and apartheid eras forced the replacement of not only indigenous materials but also knowledge and designs. At times the heritage classified as “primitive” and “backwards” was dismissed in urban Namibia. However, the impact of “Negrophilia” (1920), a shortlived appreciation of African designs, later African Renaissance and current global fashion trends implemented the new dynamics around African indigenous materials, knowledge, and designs, whereby African and Western designs cross-fertilized each other. This paper outlines several contextual sustainability concepts mapping possibilities of utilizing lived experience embodied as a re-contextualization of indigenous designs, knowledge and materials to unlock competitive advantages in the Namibian’s emerging fashion economy.

177-200

Authors: Rosanna Veneziano, Francesco Izzo, Michela Carlomagno

The paper aims to analyse the evolution of the fashion system, particularly with regard to the sportswear (activewear) supply chain, linked to environmental sustainability, outlining some improvements, corporate strategies and alternative production models with consequences on the value chains, products and communication messages. Sustainability is a complex issue that over the years has been enriched with new contents and key factors: from the environmental policy to the new configurations of manufacturing processes, until responsible purchasing and consumption behaviours. The new social and cultural models, the rising of awareness and consciousness towards these issues, require companies to make coherent, effective and sustainable choices, mostly in the textile-clothing industry, one of the sectors with the greatest environmental impact. From the selection of low-impact resources, the analysis and development of product life cycle (life cycle assessment) and even the communication contents, the practices of environmental sustainability involve the whole value chain. The paper, in the second part, focuses on these themes on the supply chain trend of the sport and outdoor clothing, one of the most involved in the change process, also considering the “natural” consumers interest in environmental problems, increasingly aware to supply system strategy that encourages a way of responsible consumer behaviors, from product design to marketing. The work is enriched by the case study of an Italian company, a leader in the global footwear and mountain clothing field.

225-234

Authors: Gianni Montagna, Maria Antonietta Sbordone

Born from the ability to observe and look to the future, MAEKO was born in 1998 from Mauro Vismara’s need to look beyond the times and in full expansion of new handmade fibers to return to a naturalness that at the time was already being forgotten. The well-being of individuals is an integral part of Mauro Vismara’s holistic vision, who stops working on people’s bodies in order to provide them with the best possible textile substrates for their comfort and health. This professional transformation, even though it seems distant, is supported by the same philosophy and ethics, of safeguarding the environment and its territory, and the deep desire to preserve people and their millenary culture...