Designers' Collaborative

TCBL HANDBOOKS

DESIGNERS COLLABORATIVE

Co-funded by Horizon 2020

TCBL 646133 – HANDBOOK RELEASED AS ANNEX VII TO D4.4 30 June 2019

THE CHALLENGE Every year, the textile and clothing sector produces more than 80 billion items of clothing.

Clearly, one of the root causes of the environmental impacts of the fashion industry is overproduction. Just in the United States, every year more than 15 tons of used textile waste are generated. The 2015 figures show that of this amount, only 2.62 million tons were recycled, while 3.4 million tons were combusted for energy recovery and 10.46 million tons (over twothirds) were sent to landfill1.

Textile waste.

Furthermore, the sector continues its race to online sales and stores and this only makes the problem worse, as described in an article in the New York Times regarding one of the most important fast fashion companies: H&M2. While the big brands show unwillingness or at best very slow progress in really addressing these issues, customers and other actors in the textile sector (young fashion students, designers, etc) can begin to do their part and ultimately make a difference in changing the reality of the textile and clothing sector.

1

https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/textiles-material-specific-data

2

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/business/hm-clothes-stock-sales.html

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THE APPROACH The issues described above can lead to a new approach for production and sales in the textile and clothing world. What is needed are new business models that push companies towards ondemand production, allowing a more appropriate use of raw materials and avoiding waste.

This implies that: • • •

young designers or fashion students should get to know the impact of the modern textile supply chain, engaging themselves in changing the current scenario customers should become more responsible with their purchases, choosing a durable garment over a garment with low quality, typical of fast fashion all the textile actors should become an active part of this new way of thinking, producing, and purchasing.

Nowadays, there is a growing diffusion of services that allow end customers to personalise the choice of fabrics and the finishing details of garments – in particular men’s shirts – that are then produced on-demand. In such made-to-measure platforms, the customer, while being an active participant in the service, still plays a limited role. A new approach consists in allowing customers not only to compose their personal designs but also propose them for sale to other customers, effectively entering into a partnership or collaborative arrangement with the ecommerce platform.

The customer-designer-seller concept.

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THE PROJECT As part of its initiatives to explore new and disruptive value chains in fashion, TCBL funded a project based on the Bivolino service platform3 where artists and designers are engaged in proposing their own designs.

Designers involved in the Designers Collaborative project.

The service scenario tested in the project4 is structured as follows: • • •

•

•

•

Designers are reached through the Bivolino platform and designs are protected by a legal check.

Artists can upload their paintings / fabric designs for digital printing.

Local makers-labs can be integrated in the supply chain to produce pocket-squares, scarves, handkerchiefs and neckerchiefs starting from the digitally printed artists’ fabrics.

Bespoke shirts can then be designed in the 3D Configurator, where all the elements – fabrics, elements, accessories – come together in 'real-time rendering': stimulating online co-creation!

With this vibrant designers’ collaborative, new fashionable creations can be presented to website visitors every day. The shirts, custom-made to order, are photographed and published in a Shirts Gallery in real-time.

The supply chain is virtual, as no shirts or accessories need to be held in stock. No more "no-sell", no missed sales, 100% availability, always the right size for a significantly reduced ecological footprint.

When designer-customers wish to sell 'their' shirts, they can earn 5% on his realized shirt and accessories turnover. The designer sellers will stimulate their business by making their catalog 3

https://www.bivolino.com/en/

4

https://www.bivolino.com/en/vendor/apply

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Designers’ Collaborative TCBL Handbooks Textile & Clothing Business Labs

known through social media channels, in a win-win relationship for Bivolino and the platform vendors.

Designer Cees Andriessen’s Vendor Page on the Bivolino website.

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NEXT STEPS By involving all the actors – artists, fashion students, designers and customers – in on-line made-to-measure services, it’s possible to significantly reduce waste and make a big step for a more sustainable future for the fashion world. The opportunities for the kind of scenario tested in this project are multiple: •

•

•

Chances for students and young designers to create a win-win relationship with the textile companies, where designers can enhance their visibility and gain a privileged channel with suppliers.

Textile companies can turn their supply chains into on-demand production, reducing costs and textile waste. In addition, they can easily test different types of garment designs.

Finally, customers are given the opportunity to create and personalize their own garments, making a fashion purchase that is more durable and of better quality than traditional clothing.

A Business Model Canvas showing the potential for service development is shown below:

Business Model Canvas for the Designers’ Collaborative Service

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Designers’ Collaborative TCBL Handbooks Textile & Clothing Business Labs

DOCUMENT INFORMATION REVISION HISTORY This document is Annex VII to TCBL Deliverable 4.4, “TCBL Business Systems – Scaling Up and Out”.

Authors: Thanos Contargyris (MIRTEC), Jesse Marsh (Prato), Michele Osella and Elisa Pautasso (LINKS), Richard Axe (TCoE) and Frédérique Thureau (IFM).

This Annex is authored by Marco Cusenza and Jesse Marsh.

REVISION Version 1 Version 2 Version 3

DATE

AUTHOR

16.07.2019 29.07.2019 09.08.2019

Jesse Marsh Jesse Marsh Jesse Marsh

ORGANISATION

DESCRIPTION

Prato Prato Prato

First draft for comments Final draft for review Final version incorporating reviewers’ comments

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY This deliverable contains original unpublished work except where clearly indicated otherwise.

Acknowledgement of previously published material and of the work of others has been made through appropriate citation, quotation or both.

COPYRIGHT This work is licensed by the TCBL Consortium under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, 2015-2016. For details, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ The TCBL Consortium, consisting of: Municipality of Prato (PRATO) Italy; German Institutes for Textile and Fiber Research - Center for Management Research (DITF) Germany; LINKS Foundation (LINKS) Italy; Skillaware (SKILL) Italy; Oxford Brookes University (OBU) UK; imec (IMEC) Belgium; Tavistock Institute (TAVI) UK; Materials Industrial Research & Technology Center S.A. (MIRTEC) Greece; Waag Society (WAAG) Netherlands; Huddersfield & District Textile Training Company Ltd (TCOE) UK; eZavod (eZAVOD) Slovenia; Consorzio Arca (ARCA) Italy; Unioncamere del Veneto (UCV) Italy; Hellenic Clothing Industry Association (HCIA) Greece; Sanjotec - Centro Empresarial e Tecnológico (SANJO) Portugal; Reginnova NE (Reginnova) Romania, Centexbel (CTB) Belgium, Institut Français de la Mode (IFM) France, IAAC (FabTextiles) Spain, Cleviria (Cleviria) Italy, and Sqetch (Sqetch) Netherlands.

DISCLAIMER All information included in this document is subject to change without notice. The Members of the TCBL Consortium make no warranty of any kind with regard to this document, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The Members of the TCBL Consortium shall not be held liable for errors contained herein or direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing, performance, or use of this material.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The TCBL project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Programme for research, technology development, and innovation under Grant Agreement n. 646133.

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