Integrating Sustainable Fashion Practices into Dressmaking Instruction: Enhancing Students’ Creativity, Technical Competence, and Eco-Conscious Design Skills

Abstract

The global garment industry's mounting environmental footprint has intensified calls to embed sustainability at every level of fashion and design education, yet dressmaking instruction in Technical-Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programs continues to privilege measurement accuracy, pattern drafting, and construction techniques, with little deliberate attention to ecological literacy. This paper develops and proposes a pedagogical framework for integrating sustainable fashion practices into dressmaking instruction, examining how such integration can strengthen students' creativity, technical competence, and eco-conscious design skills without compromising competency-based training outcomes. Using an integrative literature review and document-analysis methodology, peer-reviewed and Scopus-indexed studies published between 2010 and 2025 on sustainable fashion pedagogy, circular-economy education, and vocational apparel-making competence were thematically synthesized alongside the Philippine Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) Training Regulations for Dressmaking NC II. The synthesis yielded the Creativity–Competence–Consciousness (3C) Framework, which organizes instruction around three interlocking pillars: creativity cultivation through upcycling and zero-waste design tasks, technical-competence anchoring that retains TESDA-prescribed core competencies while adding waste-conscious performance criteria, and eco-conscious design literacy built on circular-economy concepts, materials awareness, and livelihood-oriented entrepreneurship. The framework is structured for progressive implementation from beginner to advanced competency levels, offering TVET institutions a practice-ready, standards-aligned model for curricular reform. The study contributes a conceptual bridge between the largely higher-education-oriented sustainable fashion literature and the vocational, competency-based context of dressmaking instruction, and it lays the groundwork for future empirical validation through pilot implementation and outcome measurement. Its significance lies in equipping TVET graduates with skills that are simultaneously technically sound, creatively developed, and responsive to a fashion industry undergoing rapid sustainability-driven transformation.