Setting a vision for the future
By Centre of Excellence Director, Lisa Lake
The Centre’s mission is to grow the capacity of the Australian fashion industry for a sustainable future. We will do this through education, research, networking and advocacy activities, which will also include a focus on innovation and advanced manufacturing to aid sustainability impacts.
Education
We are currently developing our range of short courses specifically designed for industry professional development. When speaking with professionals we heard time and again the need for training to be accessible and flexible, and so as much as possible we will offer online courses to work around your schedule. We also want to ensure you receive the best learning outcomes, so we will include live webinars or face-to-face teaching to support the online material, giving you access to expert instructors and facilitators. Having successfully run one session of our inaugural course, Intro to Fashion + Sustainability, we will soon announce dates for its second intake, as well as our next offerings. Stay tuned!
Research and Innovation
The Centre will also conduct research that supports radical thinking with real-world application. We want to work with industry partners and collaborators to solve the biggest environmental and human rights’ challenges of the sector. Much of this work will rely on technological innovations, and we want to build a micro-factory for training and research purposes with advanced manufacturing technologies.
In particular we aim to procure: specialist spinning machines, digital jacquard looms, seamless knit machines, felt looms and digital embroidery machines. Using these types of machines often demands closer collaboration between design and manufacture, which can help improve sustainability in fashion production. Some of the equipment will facilitate the design and manufacture of circular fashion products, while others support ‘remanufacturing’ of textile waste, directing it away from landfill. While we await our own specialist equipment, UTS has recently purchased the latest Shima Seiki Wholegarment seamless knit machine, and will grant access to the Centre of Excellence and its research partners.
Materials Library
The Centre is also in the early stages of developing a materials library, with an emphasis on sustainable textiles and trims. This space will be made available to students of both TAFE NSW and UTS, as well as to industry (by appointment). The library will allow people to view and feel materials, gain a better understanding of their properties, and learn more about properties of a wide variety of materials.
If you would like to learn more about any of our current or planned initiatives, please contact us, we’d love to connect!