Climate change is still overlooked in fashion schools. It’s time to change that.

There are many reasons for the state of the global fashion industry, including the absence of meaningful regulation. Fashion-focused higher education is a commonly overlooked factor in the fashion industry’s problems.

When I started working in fashion sustainability, it was clear that I was in over my head. the skills and knowledge I had acquired throughout my career as a designer and in my college fashion design program were important, but ultimately they were not the same set of skills needed to drive change based on social and environmental metrics. I finally went back to school to gain those missing sustainability and impact skills that I didn’t get in my fashion design degree years ago.

Graduate school is great for some, but it should not be used as a supplement for what is missing in the most common form of education for fashion industry participants. It is neither reasonable nor ethical for university fashion education to skip sustainability. the fashion industry faces immense global existential challengesand the current educational model is not preparing future fashion leaders to manage it.

Many who work in the fashion industry receive a similar type of education: a 2-year associate’s or 4-year bachelor’s degree in fashion design or merchandising. In all programs, especially in the United States, the curricula are mostly the same, and most of the required credit hours focus on skills such as Pattern making, draping and developing a unique creative vision..

Fashion education focuses on the creative genius of the designer, resulting in too many people being trained in the production of goods as designers, contributing to industry growth and overproduction. This approach leaves other skills on the table, particularly those focused on climate impacts, human rights and sustainability. Between 2007 and 2017, fashion design college enrollment tripled at select US institutions.and many were not adequately educated in the skills needed to ensure fashion can redress its climate impact.

the UN report highlighted several essential focus areas for reducing the climate impacts of the fashion industry, which have little overlap with current fashion curricula. Fashion education does not prepare students to understand or address the most pressing needs and greatest opportunities for the fashion industry. A preliminary study conducted this year by my student Lindsay Cousins ​​looked at six of the best-known and most attended college fashion design programs in the U.S. and found that sustainability and social justice accounted for an average of only 3.8% of the basic curricula of university fashion programs. .

Roles focused on sustainability or social impact may represent more opportunities and income for fashion students. Right now, the average tuition (including private schools and in-state and out-of-state fees for public schools) for a four-year degree in fashion worldwide Top 10 Fashion Schools in the USA is $142,514while the average salary of an entry level the design work costs $53,411. according to data reported by Glassdoor. Employment opportunities in fashion design are expected to grow at a rate only 3% in the next decade; the-usa-2/”>Meanwhile, fashion programs continue to generate thousands of candidates each year for very few jobs.. Roles in the sectors they list Even a skill related to sustainability grew at a rate of 15.2% between February 2022 and February 2023, according to a LinkedIn reportand related to sustainability the-planet.htm”>the job can generate more than double the median income compared to all occupations..