The clothing and textile industry is one of the most resource intensive and pollutive in the world. What is called for is a dramatic reduction to the sector’s flow of resources and the development of new economic models that are resilient, long-lasting and relevant in the 21st century.
To that end, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation (KADK) are launching a new Master’s degree programme – ‘Clothing & Textiles: New Landscapes for Change’. The new programme departs from the traditional clothing system as we know it today and is rooted in sustainability.
“It is KADK’s responsibility to train a pool of talent for the fashion and textile industry. Sustainability is the greatest challenge to the industry. For some time now, many of our students have been passionate about sustainable transformation and cannot see themselves in the traditional fashion system. That is why we have developed a new programme,” says Mathilde Aggebo, Dean of the KADK’s School of Design.
The programme was developed in consultation with Professor Kate Fletcher, PhD (Centre for Sustainability, London College of Fashion/UK), a researcher in the field of sustainability and the woman who came up with the term ‘slow fashion’.
The new programme will be headed by Associate Professor Else Skjold, PhD, a specialist in the field of sustainable business development in the fashion and textile industry.
The Master’s degree programme is based on Danish design traditions and the great idea that everyone has equal opportunities.
It was this belief that earned Denmark a major role in the development of democratic design in the 20th century. Denmark has also been a pioneer in the development of user-centric co-creation of both processes and products. The new programme aims to create new, inclusive understanding and practices in a fashion industry that is currently exclusionary in a wide range of areas such as gender, ethnicity, age, body type and cultural affiliation.
The programme will also concentrate on design techniques and skills that can equip KADK’s graduates to create more circular products from the start and to understand how they, as clothing and textile designers, can play a key role in sustainable transformation when it comes to resources and materials, and in organisational and wider societal contexts.
This means that KADK will educate clothing designers to develop new markets and new customer bases, and to understand how design creates value during its use stage. This is key in terms of being able to operate both in the traditional market and in a circular economy.
The first batch of students on this Master’s degree programme will start on 1 September 2020.
