T-EXTINCTION: A co-created fashion and textiles sustainability awareness project that takes a long time approach

Climate change activism and the widespread acknowledgement of the polluting impact of Fashion and Textiles industries inspired this novel co-creation sustainability awareness project that takes a long time approach. Promoting long time, cathedral style thinking contrasts sharply with current fast fashion practice. Saltmarshe and Pembroke (2018) of the Long Time Project state, “Short termism is rapidly becoming an existential threat to humanity” while Fletcher (2010) proposes slow culture as an opportunity to develop systems change within the fashion sector. At De Montfort University, the UN SDGs are embedded within the Fashion and Textiles curricula. This project started as an opportunity to co-create an extra-curricular community response. Inspired by the long time approach, Fashion Buying academics and students set themselves the challenge to identify products or processes that would be extinct or taboo in the year 2090. Named T-Extinction, a project was launched in 2019 to get academics and students alike thinking. T-Extinction proved to be an innovative sustainability awareness strategy providing a conduit for staff and students to share their skills and learn from each other. For 2021-22 Textile Design students and academics are now taking on the T-Extinction challenge, which resonates with the local industry and textile heritage in Leicester. This paper outlines the aim and approach taken in the running of the project. Co-creation was key, with student led graphic design input and a dedicated social media account incorporated to promote T-Extinction ahead of a co-created physical exhibition featuring a range of responses from denim products, hosiery, trainers and sizing which went on display in March 2021. Student engagement is evaluated by reviewing the influence of sustainable development and co-creation within design practice