This dress is part of Cat Chow’s zipper series; it is made of a single zipper, 100 yards long.

Erik Gould / The RISD Museum

In the hit television series Project Runway, a group of would-be fashion designers trades fabric swatches and catty remarks while competing for a chance to present a collection at New York Fashion Week. It’s a fascinating, even addictive, show, which culminates each week when the host, German supermodel Heidi Klum, dispatches one of the contestants with a curt “You are out!”

There’s just one problem with the show’s rags-to-runway storyline: as it turns out, not every young designer dreams of sending his or her clothes down the catwalk in New York, Paris or Milan.

In fact, as a new exhibit at the RISD Museum makes clear, some younger designers have far more ambitious goals. Rather than measuring success by how many pages they get in Elle or Vogue, the 20 or so artists and designers whose work is featured in “Evolution/Revolution: The Arts and Crafts in Contemporary Fashion and Textiles” are on a quest to make the world a better place.

To do this, they buy handmade yarns from local producers, use non-polluting dyes and chemicals and demand fair wages and good working conditions for the people who produce their clothes. In some extreme cases, they even raise their own heirloom sheep and form their own socialist-style design collectives.

The result: clothes and fabrics that don’t just look good; they also aim to do good.

Curator Joanne Dolan Ingersoll draws parallels between today’s activist designers and members of the Arts & Crafts movement of the late 19th century.

In some cases, that means pairing works by 19th-century artists — notably the great British designer William Morris — with similar works by contemporary artists and designers. In other cases, it means highlighting similar trends and attitudes, such as collaborations between artists and designers and a preference for traditional hands-on techniques over methods of mass production.

It’s an interesting approach — and it works, as long as you don’t look too closely.

Certainly, Morris and his fellow Arts & Crafters would have recognized a kindred spirit in Christien Meindertsma, a Dutch designer whose knitwear tops and sweaters are made from wool sourced from local producers. Buyers of van Veldhoven’s designs even receive a certificate of authenticity — a passport featuring a picture of the sheep from which the wool was sheared — along with their purchase.

Another Dutch designer, Claudy Jongstra, goes even further. Her feather-light fabrics and hangings are made from wool harvested from her own flock of heirloom Drenthe Hearth sheep.

More generally, the show points to some intriguing parallels between our own era and the late 19th century.

Then as now, traditional social and economic and even environmental relationships were under increasing stress. (In the 19th century, the culprit was the Industrial Revolution; today, it’s the double whammy of global trade and global warming.) And then as now, artists and designers responded in a variety of ways, ranging from forming artist-run businesses and collaboratives to embracing traditional craft-based techniques and materials.

Morris, for example, used traditional block-printing techniques to create the famous floral-patterned wallpaper and fabric designs sold by his firm, Morris and Company. Several of these now-iconic patterns, all featuring colorful explosions of leaves, stems and flowers, are included in the exhibit.

A contemporary example of this mix of art and altruism is A-Z Smockshop, a small dress-making studio founded by California artist Andrea Zittel. Zittel, a 1990 RISD grad, launched the company as way of employing younger artists who have yet to find a commercial outlet for their work.

Another artist, Carla Fernandez, makes couture-level clothing using wool produced by indigenous communities in Mexico. The wool, which is wonderfully soft and lustrous, is purchased through Flora, a company that Fernandez runs and that abides by strict fair-trade and environmental standards.

Morris, who was a lifelong Socialist as well as a brilliant designer, no doubt would have applauded such efforts. Still, there are limits to the show’s then-and-now comparisons.

An array of luminous fabric swatches from Dutch designer Eugene van Veldhoven, for example, looks terrific. But one wonders what Morris would have thought of van Veldhoven’s list of materials, which include modern-day marvels such as Mylar, Spandex, acetate and something called “coated foam.”

Morris might also scratch his head over the work of Shelly Fox, a British artist whose deconstructed Showgirl dress was inspired by newspaper clippings about American society women. (And, no, I’m not making that up!)

At the same time, Morris almost certainly would have sympathized with one of the dilemmas facing the show’s contributors: can products that are handmade, well-designed, locally sourced and environmentally friendly still be affordable? A fabric swatch by textile designers Joan Morris and Michele Ratte, for example, features sea-themed patterns highlighted in 23-carat gold. The effect is beautiful — just don’t look for it at your local home-furnishings store anytime soon.

Likewise, Fernandez’s outfits sell for thousands of dollars — far more than she could ever afford to pay the women who spend up to three weeks processing the wool used in the dresses.

Fortunately, you can skip the show’s civics and history lessons and still enjoy “Evolution/Revolution.” Ingersoll, a former curator at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology who’s making her RISD debut, has a wide-ranging knowledge of the current fashion scene. She also has a keen eye for offbeat designers who still manage to turn out interesting clothes, whether it’s a sexy evening gown made of zippers (Cat Chow’s Red Zipper Dress) or a little black dress made from recycled audio tapes (Alyce Santoro’s Silent cocktail dress).

Even the show’s earnestness isn’t much of a problem. After all, who can argue with an exhibit that suggests it’s possible to dress well and save the planet?

“Evolution/Revolution: The Arts and Crafts in Contemporary Fashion and Textiles” runs through June 15 at the RISD Museum, 224 Benefit St. in Providence. Hours: Tues.-Sun. 10-5. Admission: adults $8, seniors $5, students with ID $3 and 5-18 $2. Contact: (401) 454-6500 or www.risd.edu/museum.

bvansicl@projo.com