Transforming Fashion Education Through Sustainable Fashion Pedagogy: A Systematic Literature Review

Fashion education has a direct stake in whether the Sustainable Fashion (SF) agenda moves forward. Several reviews have already touched on this area, but their scope is narrow, and few describe how SF is actually built into everyday teaching and learning in fashion programmes. This paper addresses that gap through a systematic literature review of SF integration in higher-education fashion learning. Following the PRISMA protocol, 35 peer-reviewed articles indexed in Scopus (2014–2024) were selected and analysed. The articles were coded into four SF strategy groups and mapped onto five learning areas of a fashion programme. Challenge-Based Learning, circular fashion, zero-waste design, and slow fashion emerged as the approaches most often linked to stronger student understanding of sustainability and to new ideas in design and production. The review also points to three recurring needs: closer collaboration with industry, the use of Life-Cycle Assessment in coursework, and a deliberate choice of low-impact materials in studio and laboratory work. Where SF is embedded in the curriculum, students gain practical skills and, just as importantly, a more critical reading of the environmental consequences of their design decisions. Implementation is still held back by limited access to technology and by the comparatively high cost of sustainable materials.