ABSTRACT
Introduction I write here as both an industrial designer and a farmer’s daughter. My connection to the land means that I see nature’s systems as inviolable, a view that has resulted in great internal conflict throughout my 30-year industrial design career. I have seen creative energy poured into projects that prioritized industry over the environment and noted time and again how chains of seemingly small decisions created momentum to carry us further and further from sustaining our natural world. From this perspective, I wonder: can we appreciate how urgent it is that we become more ecologically knowledgeable? Could greater ecological literacy then help us to distinguish industry rhetoric from ideas that genuinely steward the Earth? Ultimately, can we, as designers, producers and shapers of culture, shift the momentum of the fashion industry to support natural systems?
