Fashion Footprint

Climate change is a pressing global issue that demands collective action, and individual efforts play a crucial role in driving positive change. The Fashion Footprint VR Experience leverages immersive VR technology to offer an interactive platform where you can learn about the environmental impact of your fashion choices and discover simple, actionable steps to reduce your carbon footprint.

Aligned with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 13, this project highlights how personal actions and daily decisions contribute to a more sustainable future. Step into a virtual clothing production facility and witness the environmental impact at various stages of production. Walk through the environmental corridor to see the direct effects on the surrounding environment. Finally, visit a virtual shop where you can make choices based on your newfound knowledge, promoting sustainable and ethical fashion decisions. We ask the user to join us in making a difference, one fashion choice at a time.

The Fashion Footprint project guides users through a thoughtfully designed journey, comprising three main sections: fabric production in the factory, the corridor highlighting environmental impacts, and the shopping experience with a final evaluation of user performance. Interactive and immersive actions such as grabbing, touching, pushing, and pulling allow users to naturally explore the virtual environment. A voiceover delivers key facts about the fashion industry's climate impact, while blue checkpoints guide users along the desired path. This combination of visual tools and informative narration aims to raise awareness and equip users with practical knowledge of sustainable fashion choices.

The interaction design employs yellow highlights to indicate interactive elements within the VR environment, making it easy for users to identify and engage with relevant objects and areas. Users navigate the VR space using standard industry movements like teleportation and turning, ensuring a smooth and comfortable experience. This design approach minimizes discomfort and enhances user engagement, providing an enjoyable and educational journey through the virtual world.

The Fashion Footprint project was developed using Unity for VR experience creation and Blender for 3D modeling, ensuring an immersive and visually captivating virtual environment. The user interface (UI) was designed for ease of use, with intuitive visual cues such as yellow highlights and blue checkpoints guiding users through the experience. Informative panels integrated into the production line provided critical information about energy and carbon emissions at each step, emphasizing the environmental impact of fabric production. Labels above each machine handler facilitated interaction, while a final evaluation panel offered immediate feedback based on users' choices during the shopping experience.

VR interactions allowed users to engage in various fabric production tasks, providing a hands-on understanding of the environmental consequences of their decisions. The narrators’ voice-over, triggered by specific interactions and synchronized with user progress, enhanced the educational journey by delivering information at key moments. This cohesive and informative narrative guided users through the factory, environmental corridor, and virtual shop, making the experience more immersive and impactful.

The Fashion Footprint project underwent rigorous testing with 10 users from diverse backgrounds at the Virtual and Physical Prototyping Lab at Politecnico di Milano. Participants completed pre- and post-questionnaires to measure their knowledge and behavior changes regarding the fashion industry's environmental impact. The testing sessions included assessing participants' shopping habits, awareness of carbon footprints, and VR experience. Following the VR experience, most participants reported an increase in their knowledge of sustainable fashion and expressed intentions to adopt more eco-conscious shopping behaviors, such as choosing sustainable brands and second-hand clothing.

The System Usability Scale (SUS) test revealed an average score of 77.25, indicating good usability. Additionally, a VR sickness survey assessed symptoms like nausea, headache, dizziness, eye strain, and sweating. The results showed that most participants did not experience significant VR sickness, with eye strain being the most notable symptom.

Despite the positive outcomes, the project faced limitations such as the lack of human presence in the VR experience and limited accessibility due to the absence of haptic feedback devices. Future developments aim to integrate multisensory devices like Quantum Metagloves and explore the human impact of the fashion industry, enhancing user engagement and fostering a deeper understanding of the industry's social and environmental challenges.