Picture this:
It’s dinner time and you decide to dine at your favorite Chinese restaurant. While polishing off a second helping of sesame chicken and beef lo mein, you ask yourself the question “should I or should I not make a third trip to the buffet?” Upon your realization that a meal at a Chinese restaurant cannot be complete without a fortune cookie, you begin to move towards the buffet to quickly grab a fortune cookie. Breaking the crispy layers of the fortune cooking you expect to find a fortune asserting a phrase like, “good things take time”, however your fortune states that, “Chinese food is satisfying in the moment young grasshopper, but isn’t long term.” Chinese cuisine contains monosodium glutamate, an appetite suppressant, that leads you to believe your appetite has been satisfied, but an hour after eating the sensation of hunger returns. Consumers consumption patterns and Chinese cuisine have several characteristics that are highly similar in nature. Consumers actively consume in hopes that it will satisfy their needs and desires. However, designers, retailers, and marketers employ “appetite suppressants”, such as advertisements, discount price lining, and celebrity endorsements to convince consumers to buy their products and/or services. Persuading consumers into believing they NEED a product inevitably increasing the supply and demand of products. The design concepts I’ve developed to address the excessive consumption of consumers and its damaging impacts on the environment.
According to (Gradel & Allenby, 2002),industrial ecology is aligned with practices that ensure manufacturing is sustainable over the long term if properly defined and executed, continually updated in light of new data and understanding, and properly supported by enlightened government policies.” Currently, our society is motivated purely by productivity and growth. We focus more on the quantity of a product rather than the overall quality. The multitude of media advertisements have generously contributed to our unhealthy fixation on mass producing an excessive amount of products. From a young age we are conditioned to be efficient multi-taskers. Energy drinks are one example of products marketed to consumers to encourage multi-tasking and efficiency. For instance, the commercials for Red Bull energy drinks markets products with the catchy slogan that tries to convince consumers that drinking Red Bull will give them wings, thus leading to higher levels of efficiency. The “quantity over quality” mentality that society currently possesses must be replaced by a new mentality that focuses on optimization rather than maximization. According to (Benyus, 1997), implementing the principle of optimizing rather than maximizing will mean “being more competitive, doing more with less, and being more efficient than your competitor.” Integrating this principle into our environment will require consumers to be more mindful and conscious concerning the amount of products we consume. To forward the progression of this principle requires a new design that transforms the concept of manufacturing. The government would establish regulations that limited the amount of products that manufacturers are allowed to produce. The government would determine the total amount of products that takes into account additional factors such as cultural, economic, social, and technological. This policy is intended to encourage the production practices of manufacturers to reflect values representing quality not quantity. Products that are high in quality and not cheaply made are more durable. Applying government regulations to the systems of manufacturing will steer manufacturers and developers away from satisfying society’s bottomless appetite for consumption. The government will integrate this design concept gradually into manufacturing systems in a sequence of four phases. Implementing this design concept in four separate intervals is aimed towards allowing designers, manufacturers, and developers an adequate amount of time to adjust their methods of manufacturing to new sustainable alternatives that are long term solutions. Manufacturers failing to adhere to the new government regulations employing this design concept will be fined then prosecuted if offenses continue to proceed. Manufacturers as well as consumers maybe hesitant at first to this design concept because products that are higher in quality are likely to command higher prices. However, by the end of the fourth phase consumers and manufacturers will become more acclimated with the regulations and recognize the financial and environmental benefits of this concept.
An additional design concept that further addresses our unsustainable patterns of excessive consumption focuses on minimizing the use of materials. Integrating this principle into the design concept, known as ‘tailor materialization’ is geared towards repressing the mental modes that encourages our patterns of excessive consumptions. For instance, the mental modes possessed by individuals who use excessive amounts of products in order to increase social mobility and personal self worth. This design concept requires a mental mode that adheres to the “less is more” philosophy. Throughout history the apparel and textile industry have repeatedly engaged in using unnecessary materials that fail to increase the functionality or utility of products. In my design concept, clothing will no longer feature unnecessary materials that fails to enhance the product as a whole. For example, the back pockets of jeans, pants, and shorts would be eliminated in order to conserve material. Retailers and manufacturers would encourage the minimal use of materials by employing just in time manufacturing. Jeans and pants would be produced based on the demand from consumers on a product to product basis. However, an assortment of style ‘samples’ would be produced in terms of pants and jeans, that would be displayed on the sales floor and intended for consumers to try on. For example, a consumer browsing at the Gap discovers a style of jeans that they really like. The consumer would take the style “sample” that’s displayed on the sales floor back to the fitting rooms. Upon entering the fitting rooms the consumer would be greeted by a seamstress that would have the consumer try on the pair of jeans to take her measurements in order to see if any length needed to be added or taken off. Once the seamstress determines the exact measurements she would log on to the company’s database that interlinks each participate involved in the different phases of the company’s supply chain. The seamstress would contact the manufacturers to specify the exact measurements of the specific style of jeans and/or pants. At the request of the seamstress the manufacturer would construct the specified product and would be shipped on a weekly basis to the retailer. This design concept would allow designers, manufacturers, and retailers to monitor the amount of materials that are used in their products. Wisely monitoring the use of materials would considerably reduce costs, thus resulting in designers, retailers, and manufacturers experiencing an increase in profits. Consumer’s can also benefit from the application of ‘tailored materialization’ seeing that it enhances the value of products by customizing ‘one of a kind’ items for each consumer.
The fundamental purpose of my design concepts are aimed to reduce the patterns of over consumption. We must apply the advice of (Benyus, 2007) that contends “the farther removed we become from nature in our attitudes, lifestyles, and spirituality, the more dependent we’ll become on the products of this transformation.” Society as a whole must acquire similar environmental values in order to sustainably align our attitudes, lifestyles, and beliefs. The possession of similar societal environmental values will essentially make the endeavor of integrating sustainable design concepts an easier process that’s more simplistic in nature.
Would you have "samples" in every size so people can try on a similar size to their body? Do you think that if every store did not do this, the stores that did would suffer? A lot of people like privacy when they shop. They may not want to have to meet a seamstress to take measurements. The idea of taking away less used materials such as the back pockets is a good idea. But I'm wondering if it would be a succesful business venture. I know I prefer to buy jeans that have back pockets vs jeans that do not. A popular brand of jeans right now is Miss Me.. They not only have back pockets, but jewels and other designs on the back pockets. In this society, most people want their stuff when they see it. They are not likely to want to wait a week for their pair of pants. Considering this, how would you make this a more succesful process? Even though some people may be interested in increasing society environmental values, they may not be inclined to change their fashion for it. How do you convince them to do this?
ReplyDeleteHi Andrea-
ReplyDeleteIn order for this idea to be successful this will require the collaboration of the apparel and textile industry. This could be an effective solution if it's mutually understood by all retailers that this new method of retailing is sustainable as well as profitable contributing to a substantial decrease in costs. To answer your question, yes all sizes would be offered as a "sample" and I'm aware some consumers may not be very pleased at first , however if manufacturers shipped the items immediately upon completion this action would have unsustainable repercussions on the environment. It would be imperative that every retailer was united to committing to this format because this would provide further reinforcement allowing this idea to become a normalcy in retailing practices, thus eventually gaining the acceptance of consumers.