Fashion Futuring: reimagining fashion systems through design and fiction

A workshop that combines design, fiction, and foresight techniques to reimagine fashion systems and foster pathways towards sustainability. How can we reimagine fashion systems in response to climate change? This workshop utilises Fashion Futuring an award-winning methodology that offers an alternative to conventional approaches to futures thinking in fashion. Rather than extrapolating existing trends and focusing on new products, it explores the relationships between material culture, fiction, and systems to uncover a set of values that may guide us towards paradigmatic change for the fashion industry. The workshop invites participants to embrace playfulness, unknowns and contradictions as fuel for inspiring innovation, rather than barriers to change. Fashion Futuring has been delivered internationally and will be brought to Italy for the first time, offering participants an opportunity to collectively explore new pathways between imagination and concrete action towards more ethical, just and sustainable futures. Who it's for? Fashion stakeholders currently working in the industry, as well as leaders interested in systemic and paradigmatic change towards more sustainable and just systems. Takeaways In this workshop, participants will: • Engage with fiction and speculative artefacts as tools for imagining alternative fashion futures. • Surface and articulate the values that should guide systemic change. • Map transition pathways from present-day practices towards more sustainable, just and ethical models. • Share experiences, tacit knowledge and perspectives to envision and propose concrete actions and pathways for systemic transformation. Agenda 09:00 – 09.10: Welcome & Introduction 09.10 – 09.20: Fashion ID 09.20 – 10:00: Fashion Horizons 10:00 – 10:50: Impossible Worlds & Wearing Fiction 10:50 – 11:00: Comfort Break 11.00 – 11.25: Speculative Systems & Fashion Futuring Wheel 11:25 – 12:20: Transitioning Systems 12.20– 13.00: Reflections & Wrap-up Notes Participation is free of charge, and light refreshments will be provided. A pre-workshop task will be required to participants to be completed by the workshop date. This initiative is part of an academic research project, so participants will be required to carefully read the Participation Information Sheet prior to the workshop and give consent for data collection. About the Facilitator Dr Clarice Garcia is a researcher, lecturer, and futures strategist with over 12 years of experience working at the intersection of futures, design, culture, and innovation and 17 years of experience in higher education. Her work focuses on connecting emerging cultural shifts with opportunities for long-term and systemic innovation, helping organisations navigate uncertainty and envision more sustainable and regenerative futures through analysis, collaboration and creativity. Throughout her career, she has led strategy and research projects for organisations including Uber, Google, YouTube, Netflix, Panasonic, Unilever, Ford, Melissa, Havaianas, Twinings, AB InBev, Nestlé, and Renner. She has also collaborated with organisations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Forum for the Future, and Horizon 2045. Acknowledgements This event is an international collaboration between the Transdiciplinary School at University of Technology Sydney and IED Rome .