Reimaging indigenous art and craftsmanship through sustainable capsule wardrobe clothing design: A culturally grounded design framework

Abstract

With the rapid growth and globalization, indigenous knowledge is under mounting pressure to continue its social visibility and economic appropriateness. This paper discusses how Bidayuh cultural identity in Malaysia could be perpetuated by creating a model of a culturally based, sustainable capsule wardrobe as a preservation and adaptive continuity model. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, incorporating cultural documentation, studio-based experimentation, and consumer evaluation. In three stages; cultural grounding, sustainable experimental translation and social validation, the traditional Bidayuh motifs, the meaning of the symbolic colors and principles of craft were systematically rethought into capsule wardrobe clothes by the means of the sustainable techniques. To determine consumer perception and acceptance, a survey of 116 Gen Z respondents was conducted. The findings reveal that indigenous conservation is enhanced when cultural aspects are reinterpreted through wearable, integrated, and sustainability-based systems. The paper presents a framework of Culturally Grounded Sustainable Capsule Design, which places the concept of adaptive reinterpretation and not mere replication at the heart of cultural sustainability in Borneo. The framework provides a transferable framework on how to incorporate the indigenous knowledge in modern sustainable fashion based on ethical underpinning, balanced translation and empirical validation.