A “fashion design for DIY” poiesis: enabling DIY to support awareness and responsible consumption

Do-It-Yourself (DIY) product design offers an alternative approach to traditional top-down industrial product design practices and promises to support reviving consumer awareness and appreciation of how things are made.

Similar to the consumer product industry, ready-to-wear fashion is facing the hegemonic trend of neomania – an obsession for novelty that causes serious overconsumption issues. Even more in the last three decades, there is an enormous accumulation of fabric and garment waste sent to landfills each year. A change should come from questioning traditional design processes to alter the distant relationship between people and the clothes they purchase.

“Design for DIY” (DfDIY) projects run by fashion design students enabled amateurs to participate and express their creativity. The “research-through-design” experiments were aligned to the generic “DfDIY framework”. The projects were conducted to develop knowledge concerning the FDfDIY poiesis of facilitation and design.

By positioning facilitation as a key element of the DIY experience, this study advances existing knowledge by expanding beyond previous research that has explored DIY in sustainability,1,2 entrepreneurship,5 and open design.3 Unlike past studies that primarily examine DIY as an autonomous or countercultural practice, FDfDIY introduces a structured, guided approach that bridges gaps in skill and feasibility, enhancing accessibility for amateur participants. Additionally, this study integrates both digital and manual methodologies, distinguishing it from prior work on digital DIY4 by demonstrating a hybrid approach to garment customization.

By emphasizing facilitation, this study expands on DIY research in sustainability,1,2 entrepreneurship,5 and open design.3 Unlike studies framing DIY as autonomous or countercultural, FDfDIY offers a structured approach that enhances accessibility. It also integrates digital and manual methods, setting it apart from digital DIY studies4 with a hybrid garment customization model.

This paper describes the experiment setup and the development of FDfDIY strategies using student surveys and amateur questionnaires. The findings from these experiments have practical implications for those interested in this concept and the process of facilitating DIY in the field of fashion design, as well as for entrepreneurs seeking to implement a new FDfDIY business model.