Professor Wins Sustainable Design Award at Apparel & Textiles Conference

An assistant professor was presented with a design award at the annual convention for the largest apparel and textiles association in the United States.

Saemee Lyu won the Educators for Socially Responsible Apparel Practices Award for Sustainable Design for her athleisure hanbok. The award is given for excellence in design development that is focused on the sustainability of the environment or people’s well-being through the selection of materials, processes, and outcomes.

Lyu created a contemporary (Gaeryang) hanbok design satisfying both aesthetic and utilitarian design attributes for athleisure purposes by using recycled materials to encourage redesign used apparel products.

The hanbok is a type of traditional Korean clothing that is worn for holidays and special occasions these days. It typically consists of a slim, tight-fitting jacket and a wide, tube dress. The hanbok design has evolved along with the passing generations and contemporary hanbok design has been developed to be worn on a daily basis.

Lyu designed her hanbok for athleisure – a popular fashion trend where apparel designed for working out is worn in other places, like the workplace, school, or social occasions. Athleisure garments require light textile materials that provide breathability, temperature and moisture control, and wind and water resistance that enable them to be versatile and fashionable.

Her hanbok design also was developed with sustainability in mind. Lyu used recycled materials in an attempt to reduce post-consumer textile wastes; all pieces of the design were made using recycled garments, except the metal jacket buttons.

Lyu was honored with a certificate at the 2018 annual conference of the International Textiles and Apparel Association earlier this month in Cleveland.