Fashion Design for Multiple Lives

Noorin Khamisani

Fashion Design for Multiple Lives

Noorin Khamisani

United Arab Emirates / Dubai Institute for Design and Innovation

The creation of these prototypes was an exploration into an alternative design process, Fashion design for multiple lives explores a fashion system beyond the throwaway, cradle to grave model. A project conceived to both critique and offer an alternative to the current fashion system.  The practice-based project asks, if in the future, all our garments need to be shared, rented or have many owners? How does that change the design process and the garments created as a result?

This exploratory research provides a conceptual model for a new circular fashion design process.  The concept of designing garments for sharing, renting or to have multiple users is still in its early stages. In light of the growing awareness that the fashion industry must consider its environmental impact, the project explores one potential approach. Drawing on my existing practice in design for longevity, and research within a fashion library, an altered combination of design intentions were actioned that resulted in three re-designed prototypes.

Each prototype explores a different approach to multiple lives. The first is adaptable in terms of size, the second reversible, and the third a modular dress with 120 potential variations. Testing with users indicated an increase in versatility as a result. 

The project and new design process could be utilized by designers looking to adopt circularity within their practice. One style, with many possibilities, is perhaps what defines fashion design for multiple lives. Garments that can endure, evolve and be a part of many people’s lives could lead to a fall in garment consumption and lead to new interactions with fashion.  There is no need for the fun or self-expression that fashion offers us to be compromised. Overall, we can surmise, there is potential for evolving circular fashion practice, and for the fashion system through evolving the design process. 

Bio: Noorin Khamisani

instagram: @noorinkhamisani and @outsiderfashion

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I am a fashion designer, researcher and educator, currently based in the United Arab Emirates.  In my work, I focus on fashion design for sustainability, informed by a decade of my own professional practice.  My research project entitled Fashion Design for Multiple Lives, explored how the design process could change when imagining a future scenario where garments are rented or shared.  Challenging the current fashion system is a key theme in my classes, where students critique and reimagine the future of fashion design.  My current research explores how fashion education must evolve to ensure students have the skills they need in a fast-changing industry.