2012 Annual Preview: IFCP's Silberman Says Future Fashion Leaders Are All-In on Sustainability

By Dr. Jeffrey Silberman|December 7, 2011

If you accept the fact that cotton customers are constantly emerging—and that a reasonable representation of their opinions and preferences is communicated through what they wear—then you need to be in touch with what fashion and textile designers think. They are the ones who will translate the cotton message to the consuming public, and ultimately will affect market share. They can carry the flag that helps you rise to prominence, but they also carry the shovels that can bury you.

So, what are the emerging fabric and fashion developers and designers—the ones who are enrolled in fashion and textile programs— thinking about? They are thinking about sustainability, which won’t surprise you, but they are thinking about it more holistically.

To them, sustainability isn’t a noun, but a participle: they are thinking of improving processes, rethinking policies, or creating and incorporating better ethical values into ways of doing business. They want to learn more about better practices, and they are demanding that sustainability be infused into their educational curricula. Sometimes these students expect information from their instructors, who may not understand it themselves, but they want information on sustainability, and they want it to be accurate.

You can read the rest of this article and dozens of others when the 2012 Cotton International Annual Edition is published. Be sure to watch for it in your mailbox in January 2012!