My exchange as ESDI has been both an insightful and eye opening experience. Through following the courses from Fashion Design Track, I have reached my goal of enhancing my skills in garment manufacturing to inform my future projects based on textile sector design interventions.

I had an opportunity to experience the backstage of the textile sector supply chain, including the methodology future fashion designers are taught. By following this methodology,

I realized that sustainability is unfortunately often treated as an afterthought, and doesn’t create much value if not supported by complex forms, shapes and fabric manipulations.

I also had an opportunity to take part in a trip to a local textile sorting center, where I experienced first hand that tons of garments are often sorted manually for second hand use. Additionally, I learned that to recycle some synthetic blends, one of the materials has to be burned away, and the remaining composition is reused.

As my final project I have developed a zero-waste kimono, which was my attempt to sneak in sustainable values into the process. Besides that, I have followed the fashion design methodology including setting a garment in context [CA, US], target user research [US], calculating and drafting patterns [TR, MDC], and developing the garment, and collection concept presentation from scratch [TR] with technical sheets with guidelines for mass manufacturing [MCD, BE].

Throughout the exchange, I have developed skills in sewing, photography, graphic design, fashion history, pattern-making and textile finishing through semester-long courses.