fashioning education is a collaborative research initiative to open, facilitate and formalise the debate on fashion education against the backdrop of global social transformations.
It brings together experts and creatives from different fields of fashion related education, research and practice into critical conversation and exploration of the transformative potential of fashion education.



The Digital Multilogue on Fashion Education
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fashioning education
15 & 16 September 2023
Berlin I Hybrid
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free & open, registration required – all welcome!
registration opens 15 June 2023
Visit conference website here
hosted at Haus Bastian - Centre
for Cultural Education & Berlin University of the Arts
supported by Einstein Foundation, Berlin University of the Arts, The American University of Paris and InKüLe
Read more
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fashioning education
15 & 16 September 2023
Berlin I Hybrid
DE-FASHIONING EDUCATION
A critical thinking and making conference
free & open, registration required – all welcome!
registration opens 15 June 2023
Visit conference website here
hosted at Haus Bastian - Centre
for Cultural Education & Berlin University of the Arts
supported by Einstein Foundation, Berlin University of the Arts, The American University of Paris and InKüLe
Read more
conference I hybrid
De-Fashioning Education
De-Fashioning Education is a call to action as much as contemplation. A collaborative, critical and creative re-thinking and re-making of fashion education. An exploration of different fashion learning cultures.
Education for essential de-growth calls for radically different educational models and approaches: a community of learners who aim to co-create shared and diverse futures, relationships with nature, and with one another.[2]
De-Fashioning Education explores how to bring the learning and practices of fashion into balance with nature’s limits and needs and the equality and well-being of all human beings. An education for being, not only for having.[3]
[1] Gorz, André (M. Bosquet), 1972 'Proceedings from a public debate' in: Nouvel Observateur. Paris, p. 397.
[2] Degrowth / Rosa Luxembourg Stiftung (2014) ’Dimensions of learning for a de-growth society’ Degrowth conference Leipzig, 3 September https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iewh1DG2Ug.
[3] Fromm, Erich (1976) ‘Introduction: The Great Promise, Its Failure, and New Alternatives’ in: To Have or to Be? New York: Harper & Row, pp. 1–12.
[4] hooks, bell (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, p. 12
De-Fashioning Education
‘Is the earth’s balance, for which
no-growth – or even degrowth – of material production is a necessary condition,
compatible with the survival of the capitalist system?’
[1] André Gorz, 1972
[1] André Gorz, 1972
De-Fashioning Education is a call to action as much as contemplation. A collaborative, critical and creative re-thinking and re-making of fashion education. An exploration of different fashion learning cultures.
Education for essential de-growth calls for radically different educational models and approaches: a community of learners who aim to co-create shared and diverse futures, relationships with nature, and with one another.[2]
De-Fashioning Education explores how to bring the learning and practices of fashion into balance with nature’s limits and needs and the equality and well-being of all human beings. An education for being, not only for having.[3]
‘The classroom remains the most radical
space of possibility in the academy […] Urging all of us to open our minds and
hearts so that we can know beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable, so that
we can think and rethink, so that we can create new visions…’
[4] bell hooks, 1994
[4] bell hooks, 1994
[1] Gorz, André (M. Bosquet), 1972 'Proceedings from a public debate' in: Nouvel Observateur. Paris, p. 397.
[2] Degrowth / Rosa Luxembourg Stiftung (2014) ’Dimensions of learning for a de-growth society’ Degrowth conference Leipzig, 3 September https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iewh1DG2Ug.
[3] Fromm, Erich (1976) ‘Introduction: The Great Promise, Its Failure, and New Alternatives’ in: To Have or to Be? New York: Harper & Row, pp. 1–12.
[4] hooks, bell (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, p. 12
19 05 2022
6-7:30 pm (CEST)
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Transformation
through fashion education ?→Towards Systemic Change
online
project presentations by
Laya Chirravuru (India): Roots Studio
Lesiba Mabitsela (South Africa): The Cutting Room Project
Stephanie Barker-Fry(UK): ReGo
and
long table contributions by
fashion students
Timisola Shasanya (CSM,
UK) & Melchior
Rasch (UdK, Germany) and members offashioning
education Dilys
Williams (CSF, UK), Oliver
Ibert (IRS, Germany), Tanveer Ahmed (CSM,
UK) et.al.
hosted at the Berlin University of the Arts
funded by Einstein Foundation Berlin
19 05 2022
6-7:30 pm (CEST)

Transformation
through fashion education ?→Towards Systemic Change
online
project presentations by
Laya Chirravuru (India): Roots Studio
Lesiba Mabitsela (South Africa): The Cutting Room Project
Stephanie Barker-Fry(UK): ReGo
and long table contributions by
fashion students Timisola Shasanya (CSM, UK) & Melchior Rasch (UdK, Germany) and members offashioning education Dilys Williams (CSF, UK), Oliver Ibert (IRS, Germany), Tanveer Ahmed (CSM, UK) et.al.
funded by Einstein Foundation Berlin
In the
modernist logic of the global west fashion was constructed as the favorite
child of capitalism. Fashion was defined as essentially transient, modern,
urban – thus western. Fashion Education has fed a system based on this
narrative. Ever faster. Ever more. One of the fastest growing educational
sectors. To contribute to regenerative formation, fashion education has to
become unfashionable. It has to disrupt itself, to re-configure itself – to
be disruptive.
“Transformation through fashion education? Towards Systemic Change”
project presentations by
Laya Chirravuru (India): Roots Studio
Lesiba Mabitsela (South Africa): The Cutting Room Project
Stephanie Barker-Fry(UK): ReGo
and long table contributions by
fashion students Timisola Shasanya (CSM, UK) & Melchior Rasch (UdK, Germany)
and members of fashioning education
Dilys Williams (CSF, UK),
Oliver Ibert (IRS, Germany),
Tanveer Ahmed (CSM, UK) et.al.
With its second public event fashioning education continued to explore the transformative potentials of different fashion educational settings. It debated the extent to which fashion education can contribute to regeneration – from within. It invited opposing positions to a long table discussion supplemented by showcases of social fashion educational projects dedicated to new ecologies of community based on principles of collectivity, collaboration and care – proposing transformative tactics.
Enjoy the full recording here.
“Transformation through fashion education? Towards Systemic Change”
project presentations by
Laya Chirravuru (India): Roots Studio
Lesiba Mabitsela (South Africa): The Cutting Room Project
Stephanie Barker-Fry(UK): ReGo
and long table contributions by
fashion students Timisola Shasanya (CSM, UK) & Melchior Rasch (UdK, Germany)
and members of fashioning education
Dilys Williams (CSF, UK),
Oliver Ibert (IRS, Germany),
Tanveer Ahmed (CSM, UK) et.al.
With its second public event fashioning education continued to explore the transformative potentials of different fashion educational settings. It debated the extent to which fashion education can contribute to regeneration – from within. It invited opposing positions to a long table discussion supplemented by showcases of social fashion educational projects dedicated to new ecologies of community based on principles of collectivity, collaboration and care – proposing transformative tactics.
Enjoy the full recording here.
24 05 2021
6-7 pm (CET)
The End of Fashion Education ?→Towards New Beginnings
talk & discussion
online

What can fashion education do?
With its first public event fashioning education explored the potentials of fashion education beyond the tertiary level. Against the backdrop of some of the fundamental shifts and challenges in fashion education “The End of Fashion Education? Towards New Beginnings” acknowledged the need for reform and re-orientation in the way fashion is learnt and taught. It invited different perspectives on the positive educational impact: more humane, more social and more collaborative/collective. Nadine Gonzalez of CASA 93 (Paris, France), Mikele Goitom & Arabella Stewart of ARAKELE (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) and Kim Hou of ABOUT A WORKER (Paris, France) shared their respective works framed by an introduction of Franziska Schreiber & Renate Stauss of FASHION IS A GREAT TEACHER (Berlin, Germany).
Enjoy the recordings!
With its first public event fashioning education explored the potentials of fashion education beyond the tertiary level. Against the backdrop of some of the fundamental shifts and challenges in fashion education “The End of Fashion Education? Towards New Beginnings” acknowledged the need for reform and re-orientation in the way fashion is learnt and taught. It invited different perspectives on the positive educational impact: more humane, more social and more collaborative/collective. Nadine Gonzalez of CASA 93 (Paris, France), Mikele Goitom & Arabella Stewart of ARAKELE (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) and Kim Hou of ABOUT A WORKER (Paris, France) shared their respective works framed by an introduction of Franziska Schreiber & Renate Stauss of FASHION IS A GREAT TEACHER (Berlin, Germany).
Enjoy the recordings!
Get more information and see all recordings here.