This report is the result of a survey of Swedish apparel manufacturers which has been carried out within The EU financed Baltic Fashion Project. The purpose of this project is to support the fashion industry in the Baltic Sea Region and the objective of this part is to investigate the Swedish subcontractors, manufacturers for the apparel industry.

The aim of this practical reserach about the values of clothes is to contribute to a new design perspective of clothing. In this project, clothing and accessory designers are challenging their own tradition and their thinking about valuable design. The reserach deals with the question: How can we communicate selected values through garments and accesories?

This report presents the result of a questionnaire about the view of Swedish fashion companies on their need for training and education as well as the result from two roundtable meetings with ten Swedish fashion companies. The research is done within the EU project Baltic Fashion. The purpose of this project is to support the fashion industry in the Baltic Sea Region and the objective of this part is to develop training programs within each country, as well as producing a web site with information that fashion companies need.

Som lärare vid Textilhögskolan, Högskolan i Borås upplever vi ett tryck och ett önskemål från flera håll om ett ökat inslag av hållbar utveckling i undervisningen och studenternas utbildning. Från regeringen och högskolansledning finns uttalade krav i t.ex. Högskoleförordningen, Högskolans policy för hållbar utveckling samt i den miljöutredning som genomfördes 2009 att perspektivet ska beaktas vid planering och genomförandeav undervisning. Studenterna vid Textilhögskolan efterfrågar å sin sida en ökad diskussion om hållbar utveckling i de kurser de läser. Högskolans miljöutredning 2009/10 visar också på ett lågt inslag av hållbarutveckling i Textilhögskolans kurser och i flera av kurserna finns inget alls. För den enskilda läraren medför kraven på ökat inslag av hållbarutveckling två frågor att ta ställning till: Vad innebär hållbar utveckling imin kurs och hur ska det implementeras i min kurs?

I vårt pedagogiska utvecklingsprojekt närmar vi oss de två frågornagenom att reda ut:

• Vilka riktlinjer och styrdokument finns för hållbar utvecklingvid Textilhögskolan- Hur hållbar utveckling kan definieras inom textil- och modeindustrin.
• Vad utmärker utbildning inom hållbar utveckling utifrån ett pedagogiskt perspektiv.
• Hur kopplas undervisning och lärandemål till hållbar utveckling idag för Modedesignprogrammet och Textilingenjörutbildningen.
• Vad önskvärd progression är och hur lärandemål för hållbarutveckling kan se ut.

Resultatet av vårt arbete är ett förslag på modell på progression inomhållbar utveckling för två av Textilhögskolans utbildningar, förslag på lärandemål inom hållbar utveckling för dessa utbildningar, exempel på läraktiviteter inom hållbar utveckling i fyra kurser samt åtta nyckelfaktorer för en lyckad integrering.

For some years customers have been able to purchase mass customized garments on the Internet and “Design your own...” is very often used to attract the customer. Most of the products are standard products that the customer are allowed to change in a number of predetermined ways. Design however is something more than just choosing the colour or changing the length of the arms, it also involves changing the silouette and the whole expression of the garment. The idea is to create the basis for a new type of design and manufacturing that allows true own design for everybody.

Today’s fashion market is characterized by short life cycles, low predictability and high impulse purchasing. Many fashion companies are responding to this by constantly introducing new collections. Zara, which is considered to be the leader of fashion are introducing as many as 211 new models per week. One of the drawbacks of Zara’s and others’ methods is the resulting overproduction; many garments have to be sold to reduced price or are thrown away. An average of one third of the collections is considered waste. It costs money for the fashion companies; it reduces the sell-through factor and wastes natural resources. Knit on Demand is a research project at the Swedish School of Textiles that aims to reduce the waste and increase the sell-through factor and service level. A local producer of knitwear and a retailer of tailored fashion in Stockholm also participate in the project. The purpose of the project is to test new methods of supply chain management and to analyse whether mass customization is applicable on knitwear. There are several benefits with mass customised garments: the customer receives a garment that is better suited to his or her needs, the producer does not have to make garments on forecast, and the environment and natural resources are spared because only what is bought by the end consumer is produced and shipped.

Historically it has been only for the rich to have their suits, jackets, shoes and sweaters tailored. The rest of the population had to buy standard of the shelf mass-produced products. But as information technology and production techniques are refined, customized goods are made affordable to the masses and as volume goes up, prices go down. An increasingly number of companies is now offering customized goods to affordable prices and sometimes even cheaper then a mass produced garment. The idea is to offer the customer a garment that better suits his or her needs on fit, design and function. The main purpose of the paper is to analyse in what ways design for customization differs from regular design and how to build product architecture for customized knitwear. The challenge is to find out how many and which choices the customer should be able do in order to feel that he or she is designing the garment and translate these choices into a fully functioning concept. Customized garments generally need to be pre-engineered in order to assure lead-times, production-cost and quality, so the design cannot be completely free.