The Future of International Fashion and Design Education

The world is changing. Fashion and design education must address potentially catastrophic climate change, environmental degradation, protecting the Earth’s finite resources, North-South asymmetry and social and racial inequalities. We have become aware of the ways in which Western cultures have colonised indigenous global cultures.

Fashion and design education has always equipped students with the skills and knowledge they need to join an industry that we now know requires significant change. Therefore, let us join together to consider the new skills, knowledge and values that fashion and design graduates need for a future that may be unrecognisable from the past or from present and which requires new pedagogical approaches. In this one-day online symposium, we will share ideas together about what and how we teach, creatively and holistically, in the Anthropocene.

The event will be opened by our keynote Bel Jacobs - writer, speaker and campaigner on the climate emergency, animal rights and alternative fashion systems, and co-founder Fashion Act Now and founder of Fashion in Schools.