As consumers' social and environmental concerns have grown in the last decade, so has interest in eco-fashion. Behind fast-changing fashion trends, the apparel industry generates substantial environmental and resource depletion problems throughout the textile lifecycle. To respond to these trends, fashion designers and merchandisers have been motivated to practice sustainability in design and production. Some sustainable options are available, such as organic fibers and environmentally safe dyes. Still, there are challenges for apparel designers and merchandisers when trying to realize sustainability. To help undergraduate apparel students learn problem-solving approaches to sustainable garment design, a problem-based learning project was created and implemented in an undergraduate design course. In the course, students designed and produced an original sustainable garment. Student feedback following the project was largely positive, with most students indicating they would continue using sustainable practices in future work.Keywords sustainable design, design challenge, apparel design, recycling, post consumer, problem-based learning Sustainability in apparel design is a subject of increasing importance. The apparel industry can create many environmental problems, including large quantities of harmful waste that are generated at every stage of the apparel manufacturing process. Along with increasing global awareness of environmental problems, consumers' awareness of sustainability has risen as well. Consumers are seeking environmentally friendly clothing, and producers are exploring ways to meet these demands while keeping an eye on the bottom line. Though consensus exists within the design world that sustainability is a vital topic to explore, little has been written about how to teach this concept. This study suggests one approach to teaching sustainability concepts to undergraduate university students.

This study explores consumers’ perceptions of sustainability labels on apparel products and examines sustainability labels as an effective means of determining consumers’ purchase intentions, using the technology acceptance model (TAM) as the foundation. Data were collected via self-administered web-based surveys from 903 randomly selected shoppers throughout the United States (U.S.). Findings validated that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, attitudes, and purchase intention were associated with consumers’ use of sustainability labels. Within those four variables, sustainability label users exhibited significantly higher scores than non-label users, though the path relationships among those variables were not different between the two groups. This study is one of the first to use TAM to understand how consumers perceive and use sustainability labels for apparel products. Through this application, label reading behaviour is viewed similarly to how consumers use new informational sources for their decision making process. The findings provide practical implications for business marketers and managers of sustainability apparel products. As this study focused on sustainability labels and apparel product shopping among U.S. consumers, it may be limited to apply findings to other product categories and may be limited to consumers outside the U.S.

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Although socially responsible (SR) labels can facilitate consumers' SR purchasing choices, research addressing the effectiveness of SR labels for apparel products is limited. The purpose of this study was to investigate the consumer segment that practices SR label reading behavior and plans to purchase SR apparel. An online survey was conducted with a random sample of U.S. consumers (N = 718). The researchers used cluster analysis to segment participants based on the participants' fashion orientation and shopping behavior into three groups: fashionable shoppers, regular shoppers, and uninvolved shoppers. These segments were used to develop a profile with regard to SR label behavior for apparel products. Results showed that consumers who were interested in fashion and shopping were more likely to be SR label users, to be more familiar with SR labels, they practiced increased SR apparel consumption, and they had greater intentions to purchase.

In order to more deeply engage students in understanding and applying concepts in a fashion history course, the traditional lecture-style course that relied primarily on unit exams for assessment was re-designed to use the Team-Based Learning (TBL) approach. Team-Based Learning is a decades-old teaching strategy that combines individual student work (primarily out-of-class) with heterogeneous student team assignments (all in-class). This study investigated the impact of TBL in the re-designed fashion history class on students' learning. Under the TBL model, students completed text readings, study guides, and two projects individually outside of class. Assignments completed regularly in class as teams included quizzes and activities that applied content prepared prior to class. Student response to the new strategy was largely positive, and findings suggested that TBL was an effective method for teaching this fashion history course. Implications of the new strategy and its applications are included.