Rebirth Product Development for Sustainable Apparel Design Practice in a Design Studio Class

A continuous collaborative design process is explored within an educational–industry partnership involving critique, redesign and refinement, in which unsold products were upcycled and reconsidered for their appropriateness to brand esthetics and consumer use. Such collaborative partnerships help to prevent the wasteful disposal of unsold products. Students who experience the collaborative and iterative process early in their education may learn to accommodate a more sustainable set of constraints within their designs. The focus of study was a process that outlined the basic steps to involve students in a meaningful partnership for product redevelopment.