...design and responsible consumption...

RE-act awarded!

2009-06-21T21:37:00.012+02:00

1. The project Re-act won the 1st prize of the 5th edition of the french competition Concours Génération Développement Durable. The enthusiasm caused by the project leads me to consider the concretization of the service more and more seriously. I will keep you informed on this blog.
To read the article of the partner actu-environnement.com and the video published on dailymotion (both in French).

2. I have also been rewarded "Student of the Year 2009"- Business Category given by Universum, thanks to my Master thesis.

Since the project has been publish, I had the occasion to answer various interviews, it was often asked to me to describe specified and the originality of the project, here what I answered:
Re-act proposes a new step: to integrate the users into the design of the products in order to allow better a management of consumption. The consumers become thus actors of their consumption. They are developed by the choices which they make, first of all ethical point of view while acting as agreement with their values, but also from a creative point of view, because they take share with the creation of their new clothing. The specificity of the service Re-act also rests on the industrialization of the process of recycling, indeed the fact of recycling the textile is not new, but to is not carried either of all. By centralizing the creative process (design of the preconceived models) the system Re-act can develop geographically, by multiplying the shops whereas only one creative office is necessary. The service is thus accessible to the greatest number and thus gives the possibility to all of recycling if such is their choice.

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Links to the published articles on Internet in the news section of my portfolio.

Sustainable Clothing - Conclusion

2009-03-01T17:57:00.010+01:00

What is interesting in this project, it is that textile creation is not approached any more only like a way to express creativity. This service gives an opinion, it evokes another lifestyle through the proposal to consume clothing in a responsible way. It takes position and goes much further that the fact of affirming a style or a vestimentary taste. Thanks to Re-act, we see that the expression by Lavoisier* attains its full meaning, and also for clothing we can say that:
“Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed”
I will write here a more detailed conclusion as soon as possible.
* whose initial author is Anaxagore de Clazomènes

.see the finished project. .an insight of my Master's thesis.

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If you are interested by the synthesis of the project, the reading of my Master's thesis, or for all other questions, feel free to contact me at magalie.pedrono[at]gmail.com
And find me on LinkedIn!

Report 3/3

2009-02-17T14:23:00.009+01:00

RE-act
…collections of 'unique items'!
Whereas the concept of sustainable development is increasingly present in our Western countries, solutions enabling us to follow it miss and that is mainly because the current society is based on overconsumption, a behaviour at the antipodes of a sustainable attitude. While many evolutions are made in the fields of transport and food, the clothing world stays often badly treated, because subjected to the fashion phenomena, it is more complex to solve. In spite of the efforts made regarding ethical fashion (form, composition of clothing), nothing is still proposed to change the purchasing behaviours, whereas it is that the main issue: the overconsumption and thus the overproduction of textiles. This service proposes to bring a solution to the following question: How to reconcile need for renewal for clothing and non-consumerist attitude?

Composition of a dress as example.

Each piece of cloth is unique since it is composed of original clothing of the customer.

RE-act is a new local service proposing to people to make recycle their own clothing in order to have a new ite,m unique and custom-made. It mainly addresses to people little consumerists and in search of originality and singularity trough a new experiment of clothing.
RE-act thus proposes to them an attractive alternative to the consumption of new textiles. But it also enables any consumer sensitive to the ecological question to have pleasure by the acquisition of a new cloth, while having a clear conscience to act in an eco-responsible way. The customers bring their old clothing in the store, choose among the available models and order their new cloth, personalized, made starting from their own clothing.
The model of RE-act is perfectly integrated in the current needs for proximity shops, and local production. The dressmaker work stations are besides the occasion to create jobs for social rehabilitation, which installs RE-act in a total logic of sustainable development.

Spacial arrangement

User scenario

Identity aspects: RE-act creations combine in an original way and without changing too much their initial form, clothing that are not worn for multiple reasons: old, out of fashion, bad size… The new piece of cloth has thus an additional emotional value due to the past of recycled clothing. The identity of the concept stands in the manner of re-arranging the clothing.

Uses aspects: The RE-act approach is new in the field of clothing because the consumer is directly integrated in the design of his new product. He/she is actor of his/her consumption, it is he/she which makes the choice to recycle such or such clothing and in which way he/she will arrange them in the new composition. In shop, the client is helped by the dressmaker-boss which is fully at its disposal.

Technical aspects: Each model is associated with a double card, one for the customer (to enable the choice), and one for the professional (guide-lines). The optimized design (little work of cutting) enables to have models manufactured between 20min and 1hour, and to have prices not exceeding 30 euros.

Clients and Professionals cards

Thanks
Alain Findeli, the starting point, “the light” without which I would never have assumed my difference and not even dared to consider that I could work design in this way. Thanks for his support and his advices.
University of Nimes

Anne Marchand, who followed and encouraged me since the beginning in my research of design for responsible consumption. Thanks for her competences and her enthusiasm.
University of Montreal

Joe Turner, who followed and advised me in the field of textile recycling. Thanks for his availability and his invaluable assistance.
Freedom Clothing Project, London.

Yann Hervé, which nicely presented to me the ENVIE project functioning and helped me to validate the financial aspects of this service. Thanks for his reception and his advices.
Person in charge of the social aspects at ENVIE (french company)

… and thanks a lot to all those which also helped me and encouraged in their way!

Sustainable Clothing - Master's thesis

2009-01-31T14:30:00.005+01:00

Extract:
For this Master degree project, I chose to work the topic of sustainability because, besides being a fact more than actual, it proposes, by the values that it conveys, a new design of what should be the lifestyles on the planet. And this concern, of which I quickly felt near, is moreover in terms of design, a vast field of reflection for which I impassioned myself. This project thus reflects my personal convictions, and this more especially as I had to make a stand on the omnipresent and quite aggressive communication, that the subject is the object currently; but the questioning is still connected to the reality: the concern of maintaining quality of life on the Earth by the safeguarding of the natural resources.
It is thus naturally my interest for the social design which led me to work this topic but more than the choice of the subject, it is the way of approaching it which rose from it. Indeed, I more particularly stuck to the human dimension and sociological aspect of sustainable development, and that in order to seek to answer the following question: can design help to solve problems due to the behaviours of the current society?

Index:
Foreword
Thanks
Introduction or genesis of the project
1- In search of new responsible ways of life
• The 21e century challenge: to change
• In the field of design, some people work already on it…
• Responsible consumption: a possible answer
• And me in all that?
2- Take action, through the example of clothing
• The choice of clothing
• Problems
• Project intentions and objectives
3- Clothing and ethics…
• Clothing
• Recycling systems
• Current trends in ethics
• Interviews of non-consumerists people: needs and opportunities
4- Sustainable Clothing
• Creation of a recycling system
• Towards a new service…
Conclusion
Opening is my positioning an antithesis?
References… contacts, glossary and bibliographies

If you are interested by the reading of my master's thesis (only in french for the moment), or for all other questions, feel free to contact me at magalie.pedrono[at]gmail.com

(go to the french version)

Conclusion 1/3

2008-11-14T21:27:00.016+01:00

After the presentation of the first part of my work, I chose to work the orientation 2 (more proximity) to which I associated the action, I order!
(on the image you can see the logo the ENVIE company that I took in reference for his organization - click to enlarge)

The last duel was between orientation 2 and 3 (more proximity or more valorization).

Orientation 4 (more "communisation") was first of all, the most distant from my starting positioning (to propose to people to recycle their own textiles), and especially this kind of approach was really much more of the field of research than the professional master which is required to me. If I had chosen it, I would have been reduced to make space design, but it was not really what I wished.
It's though an experimentation which I find interesting to carry out, and I hope to be able to work on this subject later.

Orientation 1 (more autonomisation), however it was my preferred since the beginning, it appeared during my research as being a keen demand and very relevant today, but also too much close to what already exists. The risk was thus to fall back in the existing systems, my intervention of service designer would not be more that useful. This kind of workshops, even if there don't exist yet, will certainly be developing on the initiative of dressmakers or others…

¿ ¿ more proximity or more valorization??
In fact these two orientation are by their positioning, the most opposite from one of the other:
the first attempts to support the responsible and local trade by proposing a proximity service, personalized and close to artisan way and the second endeavors to encourage the big firms to give to themselves (and the customers) a sense of responsibility by considering part of waste which they generate…

I would have liked to work the 3rd, because the impact of this new system would be much broader and could represent a great evolution in the world of clothing….
… and although I would have adored to contribute to this change, I had to choose according to what was, or not, realizable within the framework of a degree project of l'École de design Nantes Atlantique!

With wire of my research, I have been more and more seduced by the idea to take up the challenge of the 3rd orientation (I bring back) with a large firm (H&M kind), because it be a track very established in a industrial logic (a good point for an industrial design degree) and especially for the impact broad that it can have if it works!! … but the main problem is that it's something too much long and complex to set up within the framework of my degree project (disassembling of the textiles in industry? , design of a new product…)
… and will this new product be liked??
I am supposed to make this study during the 2nd part of the project,
(close to have validated the concept design of the organization of the system, this part consists in formulating the product which is an example to show the operation of the system set up), but I realize that it will be difficult, in spite of my enthusiasm, to do that in one month.
And then, as one said to me, one should not forget the risk of greenwashing. I would not like that my positioning and my starting ambitions are drowned in the logic of an industrial firm which will adhere to my project only on the surface!
Imagine the shift between the ecologist-socio-responsible positioning of my project and the fact that this kind of companies continues to sell products with a poor technical quality and which the lifespan is less than 6 months .....
This association could considerably weaken the ideology of my project, and it's not either what I want.

For all these reasons, I selected to work the 2nd orientation, more proximity (I order) in order to develop the local store, one of the keys of sustainable development and much nearer to my initial positioning:
all the textiles could be recycled by my service.
Moreover the product of this system (patterns) is much more conceivable in term of quantity of work for this short phase.

I do not forget that there are good ideas associated with the 3 other orientations and maybe I will combine them with my future proposal, if that is interesting. I could for example propose to people to buy these patterns and to carry out them to work on it at home, or put this project in a logic of existing trademark if that is justified….

In any case, thank you for your critics, your advises and your votes, and don't hesitate to give me your opinion following this decision. I will present to you a summary of my research at the beginning of next week.

Report 1/3

2008-10-27T08:24:00.017+01:00

First of all, I would like to thank all those which answered my questionnaire on the various platforms where I have them posted*
Your answers helped me with better determining your desires and needs *and I have used that to propose four possible future directions for the project*.

This phase of research, observation and analysis of key issues has now ended, and I will explain my conclusions next Thursday during a half an hour presentation.

Before presenting the complete report to you based on the results of this questionnaire and generally on my conclusions, here the four options I am proposing to continue working on. Which do you think are most interesting/exciting?:

1• More autonomisation
Thinking about the increased self production (empowerment, do-it-yourself)
which would require the creation of workshops where one learns how to revalorize his own worn textiles, where one is framed with the knowledge to make and hardware requirement etc….

2• More proximity
Thinking about increased local production (tailor-made, local, transparency)
which would require the creation of a standard service tailor of district, one brings his old clothing, selected among the cuts available and orders its clothing, personalized, made starting from recycled clothing…

3• More valorization
Thinking about increased use of waste textiles in production (producers start to use waste textiles themselves)
which would require the creation of a new service for a brand which would be able to offer a new type of line production: when one buys a clothing on their premises, customers will be able to bring back it at the end of the lifetime and to recycle it into another product which one will be able to recover (this product may be envisaged in the design of the initial product)

4• More communisation
Thinking about the increased use of informal networking (desire to share, support barter, loaning)
which would require the creation of a service allowing barter or the loan of clothing, for a special occasion or the daily newspaper. People would have the “basics" on their premises and would come to get them “extras” in shop. That would make it possible to make turn clothing which is not useful/likes more but which can always be used for others.

To note that, in order to limit the wasting and especially to avoid to the maximum production of new textiles, I chose to work starting from worn clothing and other textiles, for the creation of new systems of consumption of clothing.

Following this first defence, I will have to choose one of these orientations to conceptualize it and draw the architecture and the operation of the service.
Thus do not hesitate to say to me as of now which is the axis who seems to you to be most relevant (or most interesting to work) and why…

I thank you in advance!

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*links to the discussions (bold characters are discussions in English)
Quotidien Durable, réflexions pour un quotidien plus responsable
Caroline Daily, la bulle glamour - forum environnement
CouchSurfing: Voies alternatives de vivre et de consommer
CouchSurfing: Alternative ways of living, consuming,...
FaceBook: Buy Nothing Day
FaceBook: Objecteurs de croissance
FaceBook: Réflexion sur la décroissance
FaceBook: Simplicité volontaire/Voluntary simplicity

These questionnaires obviously did not enable me to make a complete study: the sample of the questioned people not being representative, (and then, it is not either my trade) but they will have been useful to me, with the manner of a guide of maintenance, to update the uses, waitings, the desires and the needs for a category of anybody targeted and allowed to work out my tracks research.

Thanks again to everyone!

You can also vote by the poll I've posted on the French version: here

Project description

2008-10-08T13:15:00.000+02:00

Sustainable Clothing: clothing designed as a cycle

Observations and reports
Whereas the concept of sustainable development is increasingly present, the solutions making it possible to align itself there miss and that mainly because the current society is based on the act of purchase, and it is this behavior even which slows down the progression: overconsumption being with the antipodes of a durable, bearable behavior.
In spite of the recent evolutions which one can note in the fields of transport and the food, others, subjected to the phenomena of modes, are much more complex to solve. And one particularly notes it in clothing. The fashion in this field indicates the manner of being dressed, in accordance with the one time taste in a given area. But the fashion also became according to Dominique Boisvert* a “mechanism social which makes it possible to renew constantly the desires while returning it the yesterday out-of-date ones and is mainly used to justify the perpetual replacement of the objects of consumption. ”
The objects, which act of clothing or accessories, then become quickly obsolete and rejected before even being out of use. This phenomenon of overconsumption is thus harmful in many points: first of all because it involves a heavy overproduction reflected some: pollution, exploitation of the resources, bad conditions of the workers, but that is also detrimental socially speaking because it creates an imbalance between those which can and those which cannot follow the system.

One can however notice, on behalf of certain creators and producers, the efforts made in the design of the products (biological, equitable clothing…), but nothing is proposed to change the act of purchase. Clothing changes in the form or the composition but the solutions suggested is summarized to be a fashion like the others: fashion of durable, ethics.

On behalf of the consumers, one also notes an evolution of behavior: in Canada for example, a new design is developing very quickly: voluntary simplicity, where how to reduce its dependence to the money and the speed and to support the ecological and respectful behaviors of the company.
The French as for them are interested more and more in the responsible behaviors: as indicates it study CREDOC “Of the thought to the action, the eight ways of doing move the French” dating from the first half of 2007, they are 35,6% to want to imply itself but “are rather in waiting of directions for use that in active research”.
It's to these people that I wish to bring solutions, because even these people who choose less to consume have needs, and to seek to answer it, it is to some extent to facilitate their step and why not also attract others towards this attitude.
To think of the creation of products and/or service for people not consumerists is a challenge interesting to raise, because if they work, if they attract these “consum-actors”*, it's that they are really useful for them and it's the proof that they really enable to adopt a responsible behavior…
(*hard to translate, it's a french pun between consommateurs, simple consumers and consom-acteurs, those who want to be actors, when they consume)

Questioning
How to reduce consumption and thus production of new textiles in clothing while satisfying the usual needs and desires related to this consumption?
Can we combine need for renewal, appropriation of clothing and non-consumerist attitude?
Which tools propose to these people who wants to consume clothing in a responsible way?

Objectives
Creation of a system (produced and service) socially responsible and economically viable allowing the people having chosen to consume in a way conscious and responsible of getting dressed according to their desires while respecting their convictions.
To contribute thus, by proposing alternative solutions with the existing models, to reduce pollution related to the overproduction of clothing.

Design and Responsible Consumption

2008-10-08T13:02:00.000+02:00

Sustainable Clothing: clothing designed as a cycle

Questioning
How to reduce consumption and thus production of new textiles in clothing while satisfying the usual needs and desires related to this consumption?
Can we combine need for renewal, appropriation of clothing and non-consumerist attitude?
Which tools propose to these people who wants to consume clothing in a responsible way?

Objectives
Creation of a system (produced and service) socially responsible and economically viable allowing the people having chosen to consume in a way conscious and responsible of getting dressed according to their desires while respecting their convictions.
To contribute thus, by proposing alternative solutions with the existing models, to reduce pollution related to the overproduction of clothing.

Read the all project description here

Conclusions

2008-10-08T13:01:00.004+02:00

1- Conclusion of the phase of analysis
2- Conclusion of the project

Phases' reports

2008-10-08T13:00:00.004+02:00

Report 1/3 (phase of observations and analysis)
Report 2/3 (phase of conceptualization)
Report 3/3 (phase of finalization)

design and voluntary simplicity

2008-10-06T20:28:00.010+02:00

Welcome everybody!

First of all, just to introduce myself:
Formed as industrial designer, I don't find interests any more to be working in a domain in which the main purpose is to create objects for consumption, and it even though some of them can be better conceived, ecologically bearable etc... because in my opinion, it's not the better way to improve people's quality of life.
That's why for 2 years already, I have directed myself towards the social design in order to create products and services centered on the real human needs. In addition, I am now in search of another way to exercise my creativity so it serve for the development of responsible lifestyles, by proposing alternative systems which make it possible to adopt a reduced and reasoned consumption, for example.
I use now the tools and the strategy of the design in order to attract the consumers towards more responsible behaviors, and to gradually enable them to be autonomous (in their acts, their thought etc.).
So I conceive my job like a “help with the transition” and my main motivation is anchored in the emergency there is to change massively in our Western way of life. I would like to contribute by offering adapted services.
Here is for presentation.

I currently prepare my degree project on an exceedingly polluting (for the planet or for our dailylife) but not much treated domain: clothing.
This domain subjected to fashion and heavily loaded with emotional (aesthetics, assertiveness etc) is difficult to deal in term of "sustainability" because, based on the act of purchase and of accumulation, it's the exact opposite of a responsible behaviour.

I want to work for people having chosen to live according to the principles of voluntary simplicity or in transition towards this way of life, and all the people in general which consumes in a responsible way.

This blog will be a way to show all my advances and experiments and to communicate with people who wants to take part of my project.
Please do not hesitate to tell me your comments and suggestions and to contact me if you want to work on it with me.
Thank you very much

Magalie