Incorporating Eco-Fashion in Fashion and Textile Design Education in Nigeria

Kent-Onah Roseline¹, Anne Mastamet- Mason² 
(1. Department of Fashion Design & Technology, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa; 2. Department of Fashion Design & Technology, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa)

Abstract: Fashion and textile higher education is an interdisciplinary area which combines the study of every aspect related to fashion and textile design industry. The wide-range of fashion-textile design pipelines includes the production processes activities of the fashion-textile design complex as well as the functions of distribution and sale operations to the consumers (End users). As a result, fashion and textile design industry has a great power to control what people perceive, sense, and believe about themselves, the environments, and the society at large. The paper argues how fashion and textiles design relate to Eco-fashion (sustainable fashion) and how it can be incorporated in their curriculum. A framework is proposed that addresses how to incorporate eco-fashion in core fashion and textile design higher education curriculum. Strategies of teaching eco-fashion in fashion and textile design education are discussed. For eco-fashion to take its root, it needs to be driven by all who are involved educationally and in the pipeline of fashion and textile design. Fashion and textile design education can go a long way to promote eco- fashion if only there is room in the curriculum to accommodate sustainable practices. The aim of this paper is a call to curriculum makers particularly the fashion and textile design programmes to introduce environmental and ethical aspects specific to fashion and textile industry in their syllabi for the sake of promoting eco-fashion.

Key words: higher education, eco-fashion, fashion and textiles