Circularity in fashion is more than a strategy for reducing waste – it is an opportunity to reimagine how to collectively align fashion products and systems with Nature.
In Designing Circular Fashion Products and Systems, Sabine Lettmann introduces her unique systems-thinking design tool for creating local circular fashion products, services and business models. Moving beyond product-centred approaches, you will learn how to develop place-based fashion systems rooted in regeneration, slowness, care, collaboration and bioregional thinking.
At the heart of the book is Lettmann's innovative Circular Design Cards deck. Supported by 110 Circular Design Cards, the book guides you through every stage of the fashion lifecycle – from stakeholder identification, material sourcing and garment design to manufacturing, distribution, use, end-of-life strategies and long-term business vision. The cards encourage critical thinking, experimentation and playing with alternative interventions, helping you develop the systems thinking mindset and skills needed to design for complex real-world challenges.
Through 47 international case studies from the Global South and North including Colombia, Japan, Mexico, Cambodia and the Fijis, you will discover how local knowledge, cultural traditions and situated practices can inspire circular fashion interventions. The book explores regenerative design, biomimicry, more-than-human perspectives, degrowth, care-led communication and social justice, showing how designers can contribute to positive change across entire fashion systems and beyond.
Whether you are a student, educator, designer or practitioner, this practical guide provides the tools, examples and mindset needed to redesign existing products, create circular collections, and imagine new regenerative fashion futures.
