Designing Traceable Garment Lifecycles
UI/UX Design @ Personal Project
Led research and end-to-end design of a blockchain-enabled fashion reuse app focused on extending garment lifecycle through traceability.
What happens after clothing leaves our closets?
Ghana receives millions of unwanted clothes every week. Half of these items are unsellable and non-biodegradable. They often end up in informal dumpsites or are burned.
Purchase
Worn briefly
Discarded
Exported
Landfill
cycle repeats indefinitely
respondents surveyed
ages 19–26 (Gen Z)
Since most fast fashion consumers are aged between 20 to 30, I ran a consumer behavior survey from 50 people ranging in this group.
Understanding Behavior Survey
Survey responses from 50 Gen Z participants on clothing consumption and disposal habits
What fills the modern closet?
of young consumers' wardrobes consist of fast fashion items
The dominance of fast fashion in modern wardrobes reflects accessibility, affordability, and the rapid trend cycles that drive consumer purchasing behavior.
Why do people discard clothing?
Quality-related issues dominate disposal decisions, with damage and rapid wear accounting for the majority of discards. The "already posted on social media" phenomenon, while smaller, highlights the growing influence of digital presence on physical consumption.
Where does unwanted clothing go?
Most unwanted clothing never leaves the home — stored away rather than recycled or donated. This "closet purgatory" represents a significant opportunity for sustainable fashion interventions.
What drives new purchases?
While practical replacement needs remain the primary driver, social and emotional factors — trend-following, social influence, and retail therapy — collectively outweigh functional purchasing decisions.
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Solutions
High-fidelity designs for extending garment lifecycles through transparency and engagement
Scanner Interface
Material Detail View
Item Tag Scanner & Material Information
Scans clothing tags to reveal hidden health and environmental impacts of garment materials.
- Identifies harmful chemicals such as formaldehyde and synthetic treatments
- Explains how materials affect human health and ecosystems
- Makes the hidden costs of fashion visible to the wearer
Garment Journey & User Engagement
Track ownership history, earn rewards, and build your sustainable fashion profile
ReLeaf Chain
Tracks item transfers and visualizes carbon footprint savings
Next Steps
Awards ReLeaf points and suggests eco-friendly care tips
User Profile
Displays ReLeaf points, rankings, and sustainability achievements
How the Circular Pricing Model Works
A pricing system designed to keep garments circulating longer by lowering resale prices over time, rewarding previous owners, and balancing platform sustainability.
Progressive Price Drop
The resale price decreases with each handoff, making garments more accessible as they continue circulating through the system.
Lower prices invite new buyers. Each handoff makes the garment accessible to someone who could not afford it before, keeping it in circulation instead of going to landfill.
Wear-Based Cost
Users are not simply buying clothing outright — they pay for the time they wear it, then recover part of the value when they resell.
$80
Purchase Price
6 months
Wear Period
$68
Resale Price
$12
Net Cost to Wear
The true cost of ownership becomes the difference between purchase and resale, not the full retail price.
Partial Profit Rewards
When a garment is resold again, previous owners receive a small partial reward from future resale transactions — creating a chain-of-custody value flow.
3rd-hand sale at $145
Previous seller receives ~$14
4th-hand sale at $123
Previous seller receives ~$12
Membership vs Non-Membership
A hybrid platform revenue model that supports both accessibility for casual users and recurring revenue for sustainable operations.
Member
$6.99/mo
- No transaction fees
- Priority listing visibility
- Enhanced profit rewards
- Early access to features
Non-Member
10% per sale
- Pay per transaction
- Standard listing visibility
- Standard profit rewards
- Full platform access
Key Takeaway
This system is not only designed to make secondhand clothing cheaper. It is designed to increase garment circulation, lower the barrier for the next user, reward participation, and extend the lifecycle of fast-fashion items.