Sass Brown
The Founding Dean of the Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation (DIDI) until December 2018, Sass Brown is currently taking a sabbatical to complete her PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). DIDI is a cross disciplinary University in partnership with MIT and Parsons the New School. As founding Dean Brown helped establish the University, hired faculty, worked collaborativly with faculty to refine curriculum, guided DID through the license and accreditation process and oversaw the intake of the first year of students. Prior to joining DIDI, Sass was the Interim Dean for the Fashion Institute of Technology’s School of Art and Design in New York, where she oversaw the 17 departments of Art and Design. She is a graduate of FIT’s Global Fashion Management Masters program, holds her Bachelors degree in Fashion Design from Ravensbourne College of Art and Design in the UK, and is nearing submission of her PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK. Her PhD thesis is on models for sustainable development in the craft sector. A multi case study thesis documenting best practices from a range of not-for-profit's, mission-driven for-profits and governmental agencies that support artisan development in the developing world.
As a fashion designer with a background in sustainable development, Brown is has been an advisor for Sustainia100, the annual Danish sustainable solutions guide that honours developments in sustainability across a multitude of industries. She was also an Associate Design Researcher on the MISTRA Future Fashion educational research consortium that advises on the integration of sustainability into mainstream fashion.
As a researcher, writer and educator, Brown’s area of expertise is ethical fashion in all its forms from slow design and heritage craft skills to recycling, reuse and alternative business models. She has published papers and spoken around the world on the topic of sustainable fashion, she has served as a sustainable design advisor to women’s cooperatives, educational institutions, governmental agencies, NGO’s and small and medium sized enterprises around the world. Her publications include the books Eco Fashion and ReFashioned for British publishers Laurence King, are also published in Italian as well as Spanish.
Phone: +44 (0)77 0843 2110
Address: Manchester,
M5 4YW.
United Kingdom
As a fashion designer with a background in sustainable development, Brown is has been an advisor for Sustainia100, the annual Danish sustainable solutions guide that honours developments in sustainability across a multitude of industries. She was also an Associate Design Researcher on the MISTRA Future Fashion educational research consortium that advises on the integration of sustainability into mainstream fashion.
As a researcher, writer and educator, Brown’s area of expertise is ethical fashion in all its forms from slow design and heritage craft skills to recycling, reuse and alternative business models. She has published papers and spoken around the world on the topic of sustainable fashion, she has served as a sustainable design advisor to women’s cooperatives, educational institutions, governmental agencies, NGO’s and small and medium sized enterprises around the world. Her publications include the books Eco Fashion and ReFashioned for British publishers Laurence King, are also published in Italian as well as Spanish.
Phone: +44 (0)77 0843 2110
Address: Manchester,
M5 4YW.
United Kingdom
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Seventeen case studies were undertaken as part of a multi-case study approach, the research is qualitative in nature and based on grounded theory methods. Interviews and observations were the dominant means of primary data collection, supplemented with secondary sources of archival records, website content, product outcomes, annual and impact reports, and any existing research and articles available, leading to a broad diversity of data for analysis. A wide range of mission-driven for-profits, not-for-profit’s, NGO’s, governmental agencies and faith-based missions were evaluated ranging in scale, geography and craft, with a focus on those bridging the gap between craft and fashion business. The case studies compared and contrasted enterprises that have managed to retain, reintroduce, reinvent or replace textile traditions, as a means of sustainable development.
There are many agencies that use craft skills as a means of job creation and poverty alleviation, as well as businesses that seek to leverage tradition as means of product differentiation. Some honour the traditions of the material culture they work with, while others simply seek to insert artisan traditions into the existing fashion supply chain. Working with traditional material culture, with its embedded meanings, codes and values, whether retaining, replacing or reinterpreting it, inherently creates ethical dilemmas that need to be addressed and evaluated. In a time when the fashion industry is grappling with a series of ethical challenges from climate change to diversity and inclusion it is important that we evaluate and reframe our relationship with global craft, as a possible route towards greater social and environmental sustainability. Envisioning new models plays an important role in context setting, with the intent of reframing and revaluing global artisanship through its recontextualization in fashion business.
The outcome of this research is a taxonomy of models that incorporate the motivations, impacts and ethics of entities that work with craft, and expressed through a constellation mapping of internal and external viability criteria that identifies best practice, providing insight into the analysis of the different models.