Case Study: A Product Line Analysis for Eco-Designed Fashion Products

Eco-design can refer to Design for Sustainability (DfS), Design for Environment (DfE), and Design for Recycle (DfR) in fashion. Specifically, DfS relates to both social and economic elements of production through its Triple Bottom Line (i.e., people, profit, and planet). DfE implies that the product development process needs environmentally-conscious consideration. DfR aims to extend products' lifetime by optimizing products for repair, refurbishment, and the recovery of materials. To realize the effectiveness of eco-design, designers implement proper eco-design strategies such as DfS, DfE, and DfR to influence consumer habits, lifestyles, and practices in terms of sustainability.

Eco-design is more and more popular in the fashion industry due to consumers' increasing awareness of sustainability. Fashion eco-design aims to develop products with a reduced impact on the environment and society while meeting consumer needs in terms of fashion trends. Fashion eco-design focuses on eliminating harmful consequences in the supply chain and operations as well as optimizing raw-material selection by considering both green and aesthetic principles. In other words, eco-design products should not only satisfy aesthetic demands and follow fashion trends, but also integrate the Triple Bottom Line elements into the design process throughout the life cycle.

Eco-design requires close collaboration within the fashion supply chain. The extant literature shows that both producers and designers lack knowledge of what the consumer desires in the eco-fashion sector. To develop sustainable fashion products, designers and manufacturers are encouraged to share resources for realizing eco-design. Gam proposed a sustainable fashion design process model, which was called "Cradle to Cradle Fashion Design (C2CAD)". This model encourages designers and manufacturers to work together at the stage of sample making, and collaborate with manufacturers and other supply chain members in terms of fabric selection for eco-product development. Subic et al. argued that the sustainability criteria should be integrated into product/process sustainability targets when designers develop new sportswear products.

The eco-labels with certified information are important to make consumers aware of the importance of sustainable products. Etsy and Winston argued that eco-labels are the best venue to show the elements of eco-design that are driving consumers to make purchase decisions on eco-products. Clancy et al. investigated three Sweden fashion companies and analyzed the relationship between eco-labels and fashion design. They found that eco-labels could guide the consumers to take care of their products and extend their lifespan. Moreover, some consumers believe that hand-made fashion products are more sustainable because of energy savings during the production process. This implies that sustainable production process is one of the icons in eco-labels that show product sustainability. In this paper, we study eco-design in an outdoor sportswear company. We classify eco-design into aesthetic and functional aspects, since both aesthetic and functional aspects affect decisions in operations and supply chain management.