Can fashion be sustainable? Not even the fashion world can afford to shirk this now inevitable challenge. Global luxury groups invest in sustainable brands, mass retail companies sell garments made of eco-friendly fibres, small designer firms reuse castoffs and scraps within the aesthetics of sophisticated high fashion, social responsibility is cool even for marketing people, and enduring artisan quality is once more at a premium. In this book experts from various fields pick their way through a minefield of contradictions with the help of cases studies. They explain how we are experiencing an inevitable, lasting and deep paradigm shift in consumer culture. Successful sustainable fashion reappraises material and production elements without neglecting aesthetic and symbolic aspects, the favourite themes of the haute couture industry. It also promises a way out of the economic shifting sands dragging down Italian fashion today. This book is for people involved in the fashion business, couture aficionados and students in fashion design schools, the would-be protagonists of tomorrow’s trends.