Presentation!

Encouraging an Awareness and Behavioral Change of Sustainable and Ethical Fashion through an Interactive Game

Game - Mobile

I started this year, thinking about the previous 3 years of university and wondering where my project was going to take me. Thinking about the amount of waste that the fashion industry creates I decided very early on that I didn’t want to contribute to that. When we were told that our project could be anything we wanted, as long as it related to fashion, I thought “Challenge Accepted” and attempted to learn a bunch of skills I’d briefly touched on in first year, to create an interactive app that educates users on how the industry really works, and how they affect it with their consumer choices. So here we are, 10 months on.

This tool aims to provide users with information on how the industry works and how workers are treated. I want them to be aware of these very real issues and how they can change their behaviour around consumption. This is aimed at the teenaged generation who have an interest in fashion and are currently learning and growing in this industry. I want them to have a strong understanding from the start of their learning in high school, all the way through to using it as a tool at a tertiary level, perhaps even being exposed to it in their first year of design school. Encouraging it to be a part of school curriculum works as a marketing tool as students are sure to tell their friends about it once they start playing and share it around. The idea is that there are these small notions of change that are visible so that it normalises this behavioural change. Just like when reusable bags started to become more popular, and lots of people used them in their weekly shop, others began to notice them and join in. I hope to achieve this with my game, by starting small and inviting people in to play it while they are out and about, in the hopes that others will want to engage with it too, which starts the conversations around these issues of sustainable and ethical fashion. This starts the chain of change.

Considering successful games like Farmville, it's easy to see how they keep users coming back for more. If you haven't played before, it's a game in where you run a farm, plant crops and raise animals to earn money. One of the big reasons why they are so successful is because users are rewarded for coming back each day and playing. Users buy objects to make their farm look more inviting than their friend's farms. Just by logging in each day you get rewarded items that makes it easier to play, such as machines that harvest crops twice as fast. When it was popular, Farmville was played by everyone, and why? Because it was played by everyone, anyone who wasn’t, got FOMO.

One of my main inspirations for this project was an online course I started in June called “Who Made My Clothes.” It was a short 4 week course that encouraged learners to ask their favourite brands who made their clothes, and investigate more deeply into the processes all the way from growing the fibres, through to recycling at the end of its life. I wanted to do something similar but in a way that users don’t realise that it’s education. Hense, this game.

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So, things not shown here but would be included in the game are:

·       Ability to log in with Facebook so you can connect with friends and challenge them to be more sustainable and ethical with their brand.

·       You can unlock options to manufacture in different countries, that are have other benefits.

·       As time goes on, players would be rewarded for becoming a more sustainable brand and unlock special items that mimic today’s trends. This would keep users coming back often. 

·       You would have the option to pay real money to receive ultra-rare items that could make your brand thrive for little work.

·       The ability to turn your device around and play from the perspective of the workers rather than the designer. Choose from farmer, factory worker or shop assistant and learn about the feelings and thoughts each character goes through each day. This allows the user the empathise with the characters and become more aware of what really goes on behind closed doors.

All these things would in time, encourage users to connect with their favourite brands and ask them “Who Made My Clothes?” Soon, I would love to develop the game further to include these features plus more, by creating a Kickstarter to raise funds for a developer. I believe this type of game is unique and something that is really needed in this century.  Why do I think this?

  

When I talk to my teenaged siblings about fashion, they just don’t seem to care about how it was made. They just want the latest ripped jeans and puffer jackets from Top Shop or whatever. And when I visit my parents for Christmas, they often buy me clothes as gifts, because I study fashion, so I must want clothes right? And when I’m at work I’m constantly seeing my co-workers on ASOS buying the cheapest shirts and socks they can find. It’s very rarely I come across someone who will avoid shopping somewhere if they know it has unsustainable and unethical manufacturing processes.

Something I’ve noticed is that people often don’t know about these issues, which is why they don’t care. I’ve found that once you know and understand more about an issue, you are more likely to change your ways. This is what I believe I have achieved through this app, creating an awareness around industry processes and encouraging behavioural change from consumers, once they understand the significance of their shopping choices. This idea came from seeing the abuse and waste from the industry in films like The True Cost and Slowing Down Fast Fashion. For me, it is these visuals that caught my eye and encouraged me to find out more about these issues and how I can become a better person by consuming smarter.