Modular Fashion

Sustainable Potential and Challenges for the Industry

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54337/plate2025-10354

Keywords:

Modular fashion, Modular design, Sustainable fashion, Longer garment lifetime

Author Biography

Xiaoqing Zhang, University of Manchester, United Kingdom

Miss Xiaoqing Zhang is a PhD candidate in Fashion Marketing and Management at the University of Manchester and a member of the STAR (Sustainable Textile & Apparel Research) group. Her research focuses on the sustainable potential of modular fashion as a new business model with a longer product lifetime and less overall consumption.

References

Baldwin, C. Y. (2000). Design rules, Volume 1: The power of modularity. MIT Press.

Chen, Y., & Li, M. M. (2018). Modular design in fashion industry. Journal of Arts and Humanities, 7(3), 27-32.

Fletcher, K. (2012). Fashion and sustainability: Design for change. Laurence King.

Gioia, D. A., Corley, K. G., & Hamilton, A. L. (2013). Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research: Notes on the Gioia methodology. Organizational research methods, 16(1), 15-31. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428112452151

Gwilt, A., & Pal, R. (2017). Conditional garment design for longevity. In PLATE: Product Lifetimes And The Environment (pp. 149-153). IOS Press. http://doi.org/10.3233/978-1-61499-820-4-149

Maldini, I., & Balkenende, A. R. (2017). Reducing clothing production volumes by design: a critical review of sustainable fashion strategies. PLATE: Product Lifetimes And The Environment, 233-237. http://doi.org/10.3233/978-1-61499-820-4-233

Sahimaa, O., Miller, E. M., Halme, M., Niinimäki, K., Tanner, H., Mäkelä, M., ... & Hummel, M. (2023). The only way to fix fast fashion is to end it. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 4(3), 137-138. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-023-00398-w

Seixas, S., Montagna, G., & Félix, M. J. (2021). Materials matters in textile and fashion design education. In Advances in Industrial Design: Proceedings of the AHFE 2021 Virtual Conferences on Design for Inclusion, Affective and Pleasurable Design, Interdisciplinary Practice in Industrial Design, Kansei Engineering, and Human Factors for Apparel and Textile Engineering, July 25-29, 2021, USA (pp. 681-688). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80829-7_84

Vaid,M. (2021, June 30). Modular Fashion – the next big thing? Ecotextile News. https://www.ecotextile.com/2021063028006/features/modular-fashion-the-next-big-thing-2.html

Zhang, X., Le Normand, A., Yan, S., Wood, J., & Henninger, C. E. (2024). What is modular fashion: Towards A Common Definition. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 204, 107495. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2024.107495

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Published

24-06-2025

How to Cite

Zhang, X., Normand, A. L., Wood, D. J., & Henninger, D. C. E. (2025). Modular Fashion: Sustainable Potential and Challenges for the Industry. Proceedings of the 6th Product Lifetimes and the Environment Conference (PLATE2025), (6). https://doi.org/10.54337/plate2025-10354

Issue

Section

Track 11: Clothing, Footwear, and Accessories – Extended Abstracts