Institute of Art Design + Technology Dún Laoghaire
Ireland’s campus for the Creative Industries

Eileen Cahill 

MA Design for Change

Hi, I’m Eileen. My career background is in the area of Fashion and Homeware Buying and Merchandising. In recent years, I became concerned about fast fashion and how destructive it is to the planet, this made me decide that I wanted to be part of some sort of transformative change. While participating in the MA Design for Change program, I became interested in the area of Digital Fashion, and wanted to understand it’s role in the future of the emerging Metaverse, to see what impact this paradigm shift would have both ethically, and environmentally.

Project Focus

The vision for the project was to contribute knowledge to the building of a circular digital fashion ecosystem in the Metaverse, one that is ethical, sustainable, and respects, and replenishes, the environment.

The mission was to map out a baseline ecosystem, built on research, that acts as reference, to aide in the building of an innovative, interoperable, ethical, collaborative, and sustainable Digital Fashion Industry in the Metaverse.

The objectives were to create detailed maps, that are easy to navigate, and show how the system operates by gaining macro and micro perspectives for industry, to provide a deeper understanding of a various topics. Allow people to gain knowledge of the anatomy of the industry so that they can ask ethical and sustainable questions as the Metaverse is being built with the hope that they would be able to influence and effect ethical and sustainable decisions.



Define the Digital Fashion Ecosystem for the Metaverse, within an ethical and sustainable framework

The Problem: an overall Digital Fashion Ecosystem for the Metaverse did not exist to show how it is emerging as an Industry. The information on how the parts worked together and individually was fragmented. This discovery was made when conducting initial research to understand what ethical and sustainable supports are in place within the current system.

The Solution: create a service design to identify the various connections within the Digital Fashion Ecosystem in the Metaverse and its interactive parts, express it visually, and highlight any ethical, and sustainable insights so that they can be addressed, and further research can be identified.

Project Rationale: the reason for the project and its final design is to allow the Fashion Industry, Academics, and Software Developers to use the information, and insights as a base to explore the current system. By mapping the Eco-System visually, a natural transparency arises, the aim being that it can aide in addressing any ethical and sustainable issues that are present within the existing Digital Fashion Industry in the Metaverse, and allow any adjustments that may be required to be considered in order to grow the emerging industry, with consideration for the overall impact on the environment.