Emotional design in fashion: memories and experience in a redesign project

Abstract

The fashion industry annually generates tons of textile waste and is considered one of the most polluting industries in the world. This unsustainable scenario is largely due to fast fashion, which encourages consumers to get rid of their clothes, even if they have emotional ties with them. However, as people experience remarkable experiences with their pieces, this distancing becomes more complex. Thus, the objective of this study was to report and analyze how affective ties can influence a creative redesign process in a fashion workshop, understanding the emotions of participants in the process of transforming their own disused pieces, through upcycling. This investigation was carried out through an action-research in a 4-day workshop applied in a fashion studio at a university with a total of 8 participants. Through three different tools, we identified the emotions of the participants regarding their disused clothes prior, during and after its redesign process. The workshop results indicate that clothing is considered very important for most participants. Regarding the emotions experienced during the redesign process, the most mentioned emotions were: Excited, Stimulated and Insecure. Results also show that although most participants try to get rid of disused pieces, they do so by trying to stay close to them, revealing a strong emotional bond with clothes.