ABSTRACT
In contemporary society, strongly characterized by new forms of cultural exchange, the Fashion sector is consistently evolving, capable of producing product and process innovation. In fact, consistently with the social changes taking place, consumers demand ever more performative goods which, in addition to expressing intangible cultural and symbolic values, are the result of a new value creation more sustainable. Thus emerges the urgent paradigm of understanding, developing and promoting a different way of doing fashion. In this paradigm the key word is “sustainability” acknowledged in social and economic terms, as well as environmental. The paper refers about the achievements in progress of a research process that sees the convergence of three different approaches related to Design for Fashion. The first approach aims to recognize and to establish heterogeneous supply chains of Fashion System’ small and medium companies that hold a high quality level in terms of product and capabilities, to be drove towards new design-oriented values. The second approach aims to experiment the theme of environmental sustainability in the field of textiles. The last approach is aimed to the strategic development of new processes between design-production-consumption. Three phases were highlighted in the paper: a) the construction of widespread heterogeneous production chains, which set small entities with a distinctive cultural, technical and social characterizing contribution, b) the taking in charge of environmentally sustainable solutions for the production of fabrics and, finally, c) the development of products that transfer not only tangible values but also all intangible values to final consumers as well. These, in short, are the conditions for the creation and diffusion of a new form of mix value for the Fashion sector, identified in the Sustainable Fashion. At this stage of the research the paper presents only the results of the first phase.
