This paper reports outcomes from a research study whereby fashion-oriented students experienced life where the ability to acquire new clothing was removed. Students volunteered to participate in this experiential learning challenge, titled the Fashion Detox: to abstain from clothing acquisition for 10 weeks and reflect about the experience. This learning experience was characterized by barriers to sustainable consumption, chief among them a range of temptations prompted by inescapable merchandising and marketing strategies, compulsive tendencies, and envy of those who could consume with impunity. Students also indicated many benefits to abstaining from acquisition, such as creativity and self-regulation. This teaching and learning experiment has important implications for the challenges faced by

Because promoting sustainable fashion apparel consumption is a pressing contemporary problem, Generation Y participants in the Midwestern United States were challenged to a Fashion Detox, where they refrained from acquiring fashion apparel for ten weeks and blogged about the experience. Content analysis of blog entries for this exploratory study revealed expressions of creativity that were examined through the lens of the propulsion model of kinds of creative contributions. Findings revealed kinds of creative contributions stimulated by voluntary simplicity that satisfy the fashion apparel consumer’s need for novelty and change: expressions of creativity that follow a fashion-driven direction already established, called redefinition and forward incrementation, and those that take a completely different path but within the context of seeking novelty and change, or redirection. Examples of creative activities within these three kinds of creative contributions are, respectively, re-designing old clothes, shifting their focus to home décor instead of apparel, and turning away from fashion apparel altogether. Fourty-six percent of the participants left the 10-week activity feeling that their creativity had been enhanced and 54% expressed the intention to carry on the sustainable consumption lessons they learned. By cultivating expressions of creativity that lead to sustainable consumption through education and innovative business models, stakeholders may initiate a paradigm shift that fulfills the fashion apparel consumer’s need for novelty and change without sacrificing the planet s resources.

Bio-physical signal measurement tools embedded in clothing are becoming a viable alternative in mobile health monitoring systems, particularly Wearable Electronic Textile-based Systems (WETS). To assure clinical viability, utilizing flexible and inconspicuous conductive media that can acquire and transmit reliable signals while assuring signal durability and biocompatibility are particularly important when developing WETS for medical applications. To accomplish this task, conductive threads are emerging as an appropriate electrical medium for health monitoring garments. However, little has been studied on the behavior of these conductive threads under various conditions. We report here the electrical conductive properties of specific conductive threads under two conditions: (i) as sewn configurations onto a textile substrate with different stitch types and (ii) as independent strands under controlled extension independent from a sewing machine. Statistical results showed that the stitch class and thread location significantly influenced the electrical resistance of the conductive thread, revealing the chain stitch to provide resistance even lower than the un-stitched conductive thread. In addition, under controlled extension all three of the conductive threads exhibited both a hysteresis and a stress-relaxation effect. These are important phenomena to examine when conductive threads are incorporated into WETS because the choice of stitch type will influence the strength of the signals received and transmitted, while the wearers’ body movements will cause the threads to encounter multi-axial stretch. Knowing the influence of stitch type, stretch, and relaxation on conductive thread resistance will inform objective design and manufacturing decisions for developing clinical-grade textile-based electrical circuits for medical applications.

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Objective: Active aging involves staying engaged in life in a number of ways, including maintaining independence, physical and mental fitness, and social engagement. This investigation highlights Active Aging for L.I.F.E., an intergenerational pilot health initiative developed and implemented in the state of Oklahoma. Subject and Methods: Program participants included college students 18 to 25 years of age (n = 20) and older adults older than 65 years (n = 23) who attended a 4-part speaker series focused on the domains of longevity, independence, fitness, and engagement and participated in a pre-/postsurvey. Results: College-aged students reported greater changes in their perception of an individual's role in the aging process than the older adults, and differences between genders were also identified. This pilot determined that attitudes about active aging can be changed through education for both college-aged students and older adults.