Dhana Inc., Sustainability and Fear for Designers

                                        

Individual Study Issue

10/6/2023

Ayuka Shichinohe

 Dhana Inc., sustainability and fear for designers

    

    Dhana Inc is a fashion technology company that focuses on sustainable, ethical, fashion. The company started in 2008 and “Wearing the world” is their slogan. They created a platform where customers can upload their own materials, clothing that they no longer want, and customize a garment using their template. Once the customer has laid out their design for their garment, they will send their materials to the company where they will create the garment they designed. The result is a piece of clothing that has been made of the customer’s own recycled materials that has a sentimental value. As of today, their two main products are the “circular fashion tee” and “memory jacket”. Both utilizing the same pattern method, almost making a quilt look to the garments.

 

This process uses less water and energy by reusing materials and less carbon emission because they ship locally. Artificial intelligence is being used to create new templates. Customers are able to virtually try on their newly designed garment with an avatar and even get to meet the person who made their garment come to life. By meeting the makers of the garments, it humanizes the garment and honors the workers in hopes of creating a more meaningful piece of clothing that will stay with them for as long as possible.

Why is sustainability, circular design important? Today, 150 billion units of garment are produced in a year and 70% of them end up in the landfill. These items in the landfill not only take up land but also emit gas that contributes to pollution. Consumerism targeting products once created with the intention of being used over and over again, now created with the expectation of it being used only a few times. 

Dhana Inc. targets people’s emotional attachment to clothings. Shamini Dhana, CEO and founder mentioned at her lecture, “Materials come and go but emotions stay”. Utilizing wordings like “memory jacket” or “storyboard” for the customers to lay out their materials and emphasizes storytelling through fashion.

Some companies question why customers should have the power. Dhana Inc believes ordinary people should have the creative freedom and become their brand partner, “Democratization of the fashion industry to fuel creativity and impact”. ” Dhana mentaions in her lecture, if Iphone (or) the phone experience is created by users, by customization of apps, wallpaper, organization, accessories, etc,  why not let people make their own garments? Let people drive the impact of the world through creativity and storytelling. 

This raises the question, are artists and designer’s jobs endangered? If we make  the creative freedom of making the garment accessible to the customers, artists and designers are no longer needed to create fashion. A fashion designer on the team of Dhana Inc, Sheldyn Nicholson, creative aspect of her job is when a customer doesn’t want to necessarily use the template to arrange and create their garment, she would jump in and create the design for that customer. From that, I concluded that there is no creativity outside of the template and sewing the pieces customers order together. Even with the template, artificial intelligence is being used to create new templates for customers to use. Handing over the artist and designer’s role of creating fashion, even though upcycling, is being taken by Dhana Inc to be digitized and “easier”.  

This also raises the concern that if fast fashion is creating trends that change constantly and people wear a single clothing item only a few times, will people have sentimental value to their items to want to create a custom garment? With fast fashion, materials are lowering in quality and prices are dropping. People own more clothes than ever before. Most gets thrown away or given away to thrift stores (or a place similar). There is no emotional attachment to these items that are short lived. With trends changing constantly some designs could be outdated fast resulting in people not wanting to keep or reuse that item. Some materials may be low in quality to where it ends up being seen as unusable. Will people use Dhana Inc.’s service of creating a story if people do not care to create the story in the first place? I also see a risk of customers not using recycled materials and instead getting, buying, new material to create their ideal garment.

In conclusion, I do believe Dhana Inc.’s mission to promote sustainability, zero waste, and customer transparency will positively impact the world. Their approach to this by empowering customers in the design process and democratizing fashion could be controversial. Targeting bigger companies to implement this technology could be a start since these bigger companies are the core problem to this issue of mass production. Using Dhana Inc.’s tactic of targeting emotional attachment and sentimental value of clothings, clothing brands could strategize to create sustainable fashion that people will want to keep for a long time or even increase in value with time. Dhana Inc. could use small artists and businesses to create upcycled items that not only will have the value of reused materials but a unique touch of the artist, unlike the memory jacket or fashion tee that reuses the same template. 

Dhana, Shamini. “Zero-Waste Fashion and the Intersection of Tech & Design.” Visiting Artists &                 Scholars Series. Lecture, October 4, 2023.

            The true cost. USA: Life Is My Movie Entertainment, Untold Creative, 2015.                                                     https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=rwp0Bx0awoE.