Researchers argue that digital design tools could curb waste before clothes are ever made.
Researchers at the University of Manchester are examining how artificial intelligence could help fashion tackle one of its most stubborn inefficiencies: design-stage waste. Roughly a third of materials in global fashion are discarded before garments reach production, a loss increasingly hard to justify as sustainability regulation tightens.
The project draws on diary studies and interviews with fashion professionals already experimenting with AI in design and product development. Tools such as digital prototyping and generative design are shown to reduce the need for physical sampling, improve material choices and support more circular production models—cutting waste before it is locked into the supply chain.
Crucially, the research takes a human-centred approach, focusing not just on technical potential but on adoption barriers inside creative workflows. Designers cite skills gaps, data quality and organisational resistance as obstacles, even as they recognise AI’s capacity to align creativity with resource efficiency.
“By rethinking design through AI and circularity, we can transform fashion from one of the world’s most wasteful industries into a force for regenerative change,” said Courtney Chrimes, lecturer in digital fashion marketing at Manchester.
The work reflects a broader shift in fashion: sustainability is moving upstream, away from end-of-life fixes toward design decisions made at the start. If AI can help designers make fewer, smarter choices, the biggest gains in circularity may come not from recycling plants—but from the screen where a garment is first imagined.
