The Sustainable Fashion Handbook
From the Publisher. This sourcebook on all aspects of sustainable fashion encompasses not only the environmental issues presented by a wasteful and fast-moving fashion cycle but also the social impact of the global fashion industry, which employs up to forty million people worldwide in manufacturing and agriculture.
Sandy Black has assembled contributions from a diverse group with a range of perspectives: designers and technicians, academics and journalists, environmental and social action campaigners, craft specialists and artists, eco-entrepreneurs and representatives of global corporations. Each chapter presents essays by leading writers and thinkers; interviews and statements from designers such as Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, and Hussein Chalayan; and case studies on everything from the life cycle of jeans to smart textiles and fair trade projects.
Few books with “sustainability” in the title possess the ambitiousness and cross-disciplinary depth of this colossal handbook on sustainable fashion. With hundreds of illustrations and scores of incisive interviews with designers, eco-activists, and entrepreneurs, there is an overwhelming amount in this hefty coffee-table book that really is a provocative sourcebook for sustainable designers in any field.
Sandy Black has sharply organized a burgeoning mass of sustainable fashion in a form that addresses key philosophical as well as practical questions, beginning with the fundamental (uncomfortable) question as to whether in a field as fad-driven as fashion if and how “sustainability” can be realistically achieved. That question takes on urgency when we realize that textiles and clothing life cycles use more energy and water than any other industry except for construction and agriculture. In search of sustainability in fashion—which perhaps would be a more accurate title than the one Black gave—we’re treated in these pages to wide divergences in perspectives from designers. Hussein Chalayan welcomes the challenges sustainability issues present—but straightforwardly justifies designing with materials that are not from recycled sources. The fabric printing and design company Ely Kishimoto regretfully acknowledges that it hasn’t yet figured out a process to remove dangerous chemicals from its wastewater.
Interspersed with these moderately cautionary accounts are remarkably uplifting accounts by fashion designers defying the conventional marketplace wisdom of supporting quickly and cheaply produced “throwaway” clothing with polluting consequences. Most crucially, one comes away from this swirl of new fashions, imaginary and ready-to-wear alike, with a sense of integrative vision. Perhaps designer Shelley Fox’s notion that all well-designed clothing is ipso facto sustainable is a tad simplistic, but the cross-cultural evidence in Black’s sourcebook reinforces the notion that fashion, rather than being the most ephemeral and toxic of necessary and everyday design arts, can also be made manifest in clothing that is passed down through appreciative generations.
Black’s book’s sole flaw might be its overwhelming U.K.-focus—but that seems unsurprising given the current British dominance in designing sustainable fashion, realizing that prolonging and re-purposing textile life contributes to our global commonwealth.
Announcements
Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing
Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing
Edited by Michael Merrill
Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
Published: October 2021
The first in-depth study of drawings as primary sources of insight into architect Louis Kahn’s architecture and creative imagination. Based on unprecedented archival research, with over 900 illustrations and written contributions by Michael Benedikt, Michael Cadwell, David Leatherbarrow, Louis Kahn, Nathaniel Kahn, Sue Ann Kahn, Michael J. Lewis, Robert McCarter, Michael Merrill, Marshall Meyers, Jane Murphy, Gina Pollara, Harriet Pattison, Colin Rowe, David Van Zanten, Richard Wesley, and William Whitaker.
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Forthcoming: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast Design Matters—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy by John Lobell
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy
By John Lobell
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: June 2020
Noted Louis I.Kahn expert John Lobell explores how Kahn’s focus on structure, respect for materials, clarity of program, and reverence for details come together to manifest an overall philosophy.
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn by Harriet Pattison
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn
By Harriet Pattison
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: October 2020
An intimate glimpse into the professional and romantic relationship between Harriet Pattison and the renowned architect Louis Kahn. Harriet Pattison, FASLA, is a distinguished landscape architect. She was Louis Kahn’s romantic partner from 1959 to 1974, and his collaborator on the landscapes of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and the F.D.R. Memorial/Four Freedoms Park, New York. She is the mother of their son, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn.
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context by David Raizman
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context
By David Raizman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Published: December 2020
An innovative approach to graphic design that uses a series of key artifacts from the history of print culture in light of their specific historical contexts. It encourages the reader to look carefully and critically at print advertising, illustration, posters, magazine art direction, and typography, often addressing issues of class, race, and gender.
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian by Rick Poynor
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian
By Rick Poynor
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: September 2020
A comprehensive overview of the work and legacy of David King (1943–2016), whose fascinating career bridged journalism, graphic design, photography, and collecting. King launched his career at Britain’s Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s, starting as a designer and later branching out into image-led journalism, blending political activism with his design work.
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