Situations investigate style earth of 2025
England – Levi Strauss & Co. and Forum for the Future call for the style industry to work together to create a sustainable earth in a new report launched today that explores the future of the trillion dollar sector.
Style Futures presents four vivid situations of the planet of 2025 and the role of the style industry, helping companies around the globe navigate the ever-changing challenge of developing sustainable business.
Will climate change refugees spread new style influences around the earth? will a shortage of raw materials see us renting our clothes from libraries? Will technological advances make it common to grow what we wear?
The situations take account of the key factors that are already affecting the industry and will bring profound change over the next 15 years. They are designed as a tool to challenge companies’ strategies, inspire them with new opportunities and help them plan for the future.
“For the style industry to be sustainable economically, it must be sustainable socially and environmentally too,“ said John Anderson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Levi Strauss & Co., which worked with independent sustainability experts Forum for the Future to produce the report.
“These provocative situations challenge all of us to look beyond the short term and use our collective power to work to create the kind of positive globe we’d like to see in 2025,” continued Anderson.
Peter Madden, Chief Executive of the Forum, said: “The global style industry generates a trillion dollars a year. What we wear – and how it’s made and sold – can have a huge positive impact on our society and environment. This report describes how fashion’s future could be greener.”
Forum for the Future produced the four situations in collaboration with style experts from around the earth in manufacturing, design and retail, as well as universities, trade unions and NGOs. They discover every aspect of the industry, from production of raw materials, through manufacturing and sale, to use and end of life. The four Style Futures situations follow:
Slow is Beautiful presents a globe of political collaboration and global trade. “Slow fashion” is in vogue, and high street brands compete on sustainability credentials. Climate change refugees have introduced new style influences. People own fewer, but higher quality clothes. “Vintage” second-hand clothes are also popular, bought and sold online. People also wear “smart” clothes, which monitor their health and wellbeing. Japan specialises in remanufacturing the world’s used garments.
In Community Couture, self-sufficient communities are thriving in a earth struggling to cope with the impacts of climate change and resource shortages. Only the rich can afford new clothing, and factories that still make clothes from raw materials need protection from armed gangs. People rent garments from clothing libraries or make their own in community recycling centres. Second-hand clothing is a valuable resource and nothing is thrown away.
The prosperous planet of Techno-Chic has benefited from an early switch to a low-carbon economy and huge technological investment. 3-D body scanners allow people to “try on” clothes in virtual mirrors. Modular clothing, produced by machines in China, is customised in store to individual taste. The latest craze is “Chameleon” clothing, a military spin-off, offering a blank canvas which can change colour and fashion, programmed to mimic the celeb of the moment. Clothes are designed to biodegrade or be reused.
In Patchwork Planet, the earth has fragmented into competing blocs with rapidly changing fashions inspired by religious and cultural ideals. Western clothes are banned in much of the Middle East. Resource shortages have driven innovation: garments can be “grown” from bacterial cellulose. Clothes are designed to be zipped, tucked and strapped to create many different looks, and post-purchase services allow owners to update them in line with the latest local trend.
Style Futures will be launched during London Style Week at an event hosted by Levi Strauss & Co. and Forum for the Future at London’s Southbank Centre on February 23rd. A presentation on the project is on the programme for the Defra Sustainable Clothing Roadmap conference the same day, an annual industry event on sustainable clothing.
Endorsements of Style Futures
“Fashion Futures makes an important contribution to the longer-term sustainability of clothing production. By providing four provocative situations of future worlds in 2025, Style Futures can help companies develop responses to key social and environmental challenges”. Mike Barry, Head of Sustainable Business, Marks & Spencer.
“Companies need to be seeding innovation and new ideas now in order to thrive in a resource-constrained earth. We need thought-provoking research like Style Futures to help us collaborate and advocate for the right future solutions around the most important issues on sustainability.”