Designers’ potential in sustainable fashion: a systematic literature review

Given the unsustainable issues of environmental pollution, resource waste, and industrial cycle blockage, the garment industry, has sought an innovation for sustainable development led by the linear economy. The circular economy (CE) advocates closing and correcting material and energy circuits, minimising resource entry and waste, and improving emissions and energy consumption. Most practices under the existing CE model address the outcome rather than comprehending the source. As one of the most critical players in the apparel industry, designers understand the source of product development. In this paper, existing sustainable design practices (SDPs) in the transition of the apparel industry to CE were summarised through a systematic literature review. The extent of designers’ involvement in CE was explored through a correlation study and data analysis between SDPs and the processes of product development (PDP) and production process (PP). Furthermore, the designers’ potential to contribute sustainably to the CE transformation within the apparel industry was discussed via qualitative analysis. The findings demonstrated infrequent involvement in PP by designers, whose voices were limited in the apparel industry, and that the possibility of more designer involvement in SDP. Therefore, this research only focused on the sustainability potential of designer-led PDPs. Lastly, the potential and limitations of applying PDP three-dimensional visualisation as a designer-led SDP were presented.