Tools for a Sustainable Knitwear System. Design Researching Towards Possible Answers

Sustainability is a widely discussed issue for fashion, and designers are asked to take a central role both in facilitating the transition towards sustainable supply chains and in shaping lifestyles to promote change in society. The article focuses on the knitwear sector, analyzing how this industry scenario, placed halfway between an ancient manual technique and the most advanced technologies offers wide perspectives to pursue a more sustainable system. It reports the methods and practices used by researchers to bring sustainability in the field, to define new professionals able to innovate the entire knitwear production chain in a sustainable way, and to outline applied research activities that can widen the knowledge and intervene in the area of convergence between the design methods and the practices of sustainability.