My Fash Edu

Always learning! This teacher is curious and always trying to stay 10 steps ahead. Planning for my upcoming session on AI and the fashion industry talk at the NCACTE conference on November 21, 2025. Doing my best to support FCS/Career and Tech education. Need help with AI fashion literacy and digital design tools? I am here to support you too! Just reach out to learn how I can help with your professional development goals this year!

I love summer! It means slow mornings, travel and creativity. As I sit and enjoy my surroundings…I pause for some color play. This is fun for us teachers or anyone interested in exploring creativity. This easy exploratory exercise can be used to get us moving and design focused. Try it this summer for a creative spark in your life.

Great article to raise awareness and to get us and others thinking about our own wardrobes. Do we need more or just maybe we could do with a bit less. I love the concept of buying less and buying better. Anyone else with me on this?

As the sheer quantity of clothing available to the average American has grown over the past few decades, everything feels at least a little bit flimsier than it used to, Amanda Mull argued in 2023. https://theatln.tc/CEkwZcmY

Good sweaters, gloves, beanies, and scarves in particular are all but gone from mass-market retailers. “The options that have replaced them lose their fluff faster, feel fake, and either keep their wearers too hot or let the winter wind whip right through them. Sometimes they even smell like plastic,” Mull writes. Knits used to be made entirely of natural fibers, usually from shearing sheep, goats, alpacas, and other animals. Sometimes, plant-derived fibers such as cotton or linen were blended in. Now, according to Imran Islam, a textile-science professor and knit expert at the Fashion Institute of Technology, in New York, the overwhelming majority of yarn used in mass-market knitwear is blended with some type of plastic.

Knits made with synthetic fiber are cheaper to produce. They can be spun up in astronomical quantities. They also usually can be tossed in your washing machine with everything else. But by virtually every other measure, synthetic fabrics are far inferior, Mull writes. They pill quickly, sometimes look fake, shed microplastics, and don’t perform as well as wool when worn. The majority of clothing sold in the U.S. now includes at least some plastic content. Brands generally rely on consumers not to be interested enough in fabric content to check the tags before buying. But Sofi Thanhauser, the author of “Worn: A People’s History of Clothing,” said brands have also gotten more adept at marketing synthetic fabrics as a consumer advantage, whether or not they actually are in any particular garment.

The result of all of this is abundance, but only by a definition of the word that includes an abundance of junk, Mull continues. A good sweater is hard to find, but it’s not impossible. “Plenty of garments gesture at what used to be widely available, but few hold a candle to the garments that were once the norm. And, in fact, please don’t get candles too close to a poly blend, which is much more likely than wool to go up in flames.”

🎨: Jared Bartman / The Atlantic / Getty

Hey FCS friends! I just added an in-person design and garment construction workshop this summer in North Carolina. Does anyone want to join me for some design and sewing fun in sunny NC? Check it out here:

Design and Garment Engineering In-Person Workshop Design and Garment Engineering Workshop Beginning Apparel Design and Garment Engineering for the Fashion Educator My Fash Edu July 21-24, 2025 (Registration due June 6) Apex, North Carolina My Fash Edu brings high quality, curated, fashion focused learning experiences. This is more than a ...

Wandering 5th Avenue and looked up to see this beauty. What an amazing store front transformation.

Looking forward to wrapping up the school year. It is quickly approaching. What is on your summer to do list? For me, I am going to kick off summer with some travel, then catch up on reading, time to explore photography and diving into a design project? Please share what you have planned.