Designing Otherwise: A Practitioner’s Path to Ecological Responsibility

Abstract: With the outbreak of COVID-19, garment workers worldwide faced increasingly hazardous conditions, especially as companies canceled billions of dollars in orders that left millions without pay. From my home office, I navigated tight budgets and deadlines, witnessing firsthand the gap between sustainability initiatives and lived realities. This experience prompted my transition from an industry practitioner to a sustainability educator, informed by Indigenous and African diasporic ways of being, doing, and knowing. My research explores the role of culture in fashion and sustainability. It moves from learning with Indigenous jewelry designers in the Northwest Coast to following cotton from farm to factory in Egypt. By centering Traditional Ecological Knowledge, it demonstrates how the future of fashion depends on ecological responsibility through relational accountability and regenerative practice.