ROUNDTABLE SERIES: If You Don't Make It, We Can't Overconsume It: A Technologist Picks a Side
This is another episode of the Industry Roundtable, Fashion Forward's series unpacking fashion's biggest tensions with the people actually living them. We've heard two technologists give careful, nuanced answers to one question, overproduction or overconsumption. This week, someone finally just picked a side, and told us exactly why.Dorelle McPherson is an AI Creative Technologist at Charles Komar & Sons, working at the intersection of AI and apparel product development, with nearly 30 years in patternmaking, technical design, and fit, and certifications across CLO3D, Browzwear, Style3D, and Optitex. She's spent decades on the exact floor where samples get made, remade, and quietly thrown away.In this episode, Dorelle makes her case for overproduction as fashion's real driver of waste, if you don't make it, you can't buy it, walks us through the sampling waste most people never see, names replenishment culture as a quiet villain nobody talks about, and explains why manufacturers won't hand their trust to technology that hasn't earned it, because real people's livelihoods are riding on that production line.If you're building a brand, sourcing production, or trying to understand why so much fashion tech quietly underdelivers once it hits the factory floor, this conversation will stick with you.(0:00) The Scale of Fashion Waste(2:08) Understanding the Fashion Supply Chain(2:24) The Cost of Fashion Waste: Overproduction vs. Overconsumption(6:54) Technology's Role in Fashion Operations(11:45) Data Utilization in Fashion: The Key to Reducing Waste(16:30) The Gap in Fashion Technology for SMEs(21:23) Launching a Fashion Brand: Challenges and Solutions(22:45) Fragmentation in the Fashion Supply Chain(25:29) On-Demand Production: The Digital First Approach(29:43) Collaboration Across the Supply Chain(33:45) Consumer Collaboration in Reducing Waste(36:22) The Role of Overproduction vs. OverconsumptionFashion technology, overproduction vs overconsumption, patternmaking, replenishment, MOQs explained, made to order fashion, fashion supply chain, AI fashion tools.Read the full interactive conversation on Substack, and Join the Fashion Forward community so you never miss an episode