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COLLAboRATIVE
Workshops

ACTIVATE: DE-GROWTH NARRATIVES – IMPLEMENT DE-GROWTH PARADIGMS


Paula Keilholz & Isabell Schnalle
Threads and Tits (Germany)

In our workshop we will share transformative strategies to identify different levels of change and how narratives can be used as a transformative tool to implement de-growth paradigms. Using the climate activating compass as a working tool will help us navigate through practices of degrowth logic. Phase 1 will see us mind-mapping and transferring fashion narratives into a transformation level model. Phase 2 is a leap into desired climate-just futures. Phase 3 allows participants to identify which spaces they want to pursue change in and which transformation strategies are the most effective and empowering for their very own practice.



Credits:
Axl Jansen
Isabell Schnalle works on the intersection of transformation design, art, and fashion. Since 2020 she has taught in the field of transformative and climate justice education. As a member of Klasse Klima and Threads and Tits, she operates on the activist and transformative potential of education, design, and her own artistic practice with a focus on eco-feminist and degrowth narratives.

Paula Keilholz is a transformation and fashion designer who works at the intersection of design research, activism, and design education. In her practice, she interrogates fashion as a communication medium and seeks alternative/speculative scenarios for producers and consumers. She also pursues this interest in her activist work in the collective "Threads and Tits". Paula combines analytical-methodical, practical-creative knowledge, and lived activist practice to get closer to desirable fashion futures.


 




QUEER NEEDLEWORK CIRCLE

Lou Croff Blake & Theodorus Johannes (US/The Netherlands)

What cultural scripts do our garments carry? How can we, the wearers, make clothes that communicate where we come from, our current lived environment, or group belonging? ‘Queer Needlework Circle Berlin’ is a group of queer and trans individuals who gather weekly at the community center Village. Berlin. In this space, we practice handwork on our own and each other's garments, while nurturing solidarity and community bonds. This group is searching for current applications of queer symbolism in fashion; we reflect upon our shared legacy of queer semiotic dress while imagining what wearable symbols might guide us into a safe and thriving future.









Lou Croff Blake (they/them) integrates queer theory with queer community-building, with the aim of fostering intersectional equity and radical visibility of marginalized genders. In their multidisciplinary body of work, they dissolve the barriers between creative play and critical analysis, choosing fashion and dress practices as a medium for generating collectivist, grassroots solidarity.

Credits:
Rafael Medina
Theodorus Johannes (they / them) is a filmmaker, researcher, storyteller, and notorious outfit repeater. They make reports that concentrate on fashion as a complex and powerful form of communication, in which themes such as identity and authenticity are inquired. Community, folklore, and needlework are central to their art practice.



WHAT IS DE-FASHION?


Sandra Niessen & Sara Arnold (Fashion Act Now, Belgium/UK)

Fashion Act Now members, following Sandra Niessen's provocation, will open up a space for critical thinking on Defashion. This workshop uses collective knowledge to build new visions that look beyond the Fashion paradigm. The workshop will begin by asking questions such as: Can and should Fashion degrow? Is Fashion inherently colonial? And what are Fashion’s sacrifice zones? Through structured conversations, we will process our thoughts and formulate new definitions of Fashion (the current system), Defashion (the transitions), and Post-Fashion (the visions for something beyond), as well as giving space for new concepts to emerge.






Sandra Niessen is an anthropologist. She has researched the clothing of the Batak people of Indonesia for 45 years. Having witnessed firsthand some of the cultural sacrifices committed by the expanding Fashion industry she has turned to activism to help dismantle that industry. Membership in the ‘Research Collective for Decoloniality and Fashion’ and ‘Fashion Act Now’ has facilitated her efforts.

Credits:
Immo Klink
Sara Arnold, despite studying fashion design, chose not to participate in clothing production and instead founded an archive clothing rental platform in 2015. She subsequently decided radical action was needed and joined Extinction Rebellion, coordinating their fashion arm, from where FAN evolved. She convenes the collective knowledge of FAN to bring projects to fruition. Sara lectures on Defashion and system change.

IN-PERSON

STR R008
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin


Places are limited.
Registration is open until
10 September 2023.


The workshop is targeted
at children aged 5-10 years old,
yet open to all.

PUBLIC WORKSHOP - for kids teens and early birds

FASCINATING UPS AND DOWNS - WEAVING WORKSHOP FOR CHILDREN
Friday 15 September 2023 - - Collaborative Session 1 - 08.45- 11.15 AM (CEST) 


Teresa Fagbohoun (Germany)

In this weaving workshop for chilren we will explore this textile technique through a very elementary method. We will test everyday furniture to see if it is suitable for loom weaving and then together put the warp on it. With thick ribbons and threads, we will then send the weft threads through the warp that has been drawn up on a chair, for example. The rhythmic up and down of the shuttle gradually creates a surface, a fabric.
The children will learn about the ancient technique of weaving in a playful way. Each child may create their own „furniture-loom“ and fabric. We will have breaks together and according to the title embrace the volatile condition of our youngest ones.
Spoken languages are German, English and Portugese.

Reconciling education, research and family? The workshop is targeted at children aged 5-10 years old. Children can participate in the workshop without their parents







Credits:
Nicoló Lanfranchi

Teresa Fagbohoun studied fashion design at the Berlin University of the Arts and worked in the accessories sector in the German and Brazilian fashion industry for JOOP!, Projeto Sertões and Jess Vidal. After living in São Paulo for many years, she now lives in Berlin and works as a designer in freelance and educational contexts.



IN-PERSON
STR R309
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin
SORRY, FULLY BOOKED.
.
THIS WORKSHOP IS TARGETED
TO SECONDARY SCHOOL
STUDENTS, YET OPEN TO ALL.
PUBLIC WORKSHOP - for kids teens and early birds

STITCH AND BITCHFriday 15 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 1 - 11.30 AM - 1.30 PM (CEST) 


Sofia Fiorentino Sarrate & Helene Hsu (Denmark)
supported by Dorothée Warning (Head of tailoring workshop, Berlin University of the Arts)

Bring your projects to work on that have been neglected and have been sitting in the bottom of their closets, bringing them to life in unison with the community. We share advice and guidance throughout the event and foster an inclusive environment where open conversations and brainstorming are welcomed. Basic sewing tools and a library of textile scraps are available for those who need them. Ultimately we extend the life of the garments in question, through a social endeavor that aims to create ripples of change in the everyday discourse of fashion practice.







Credits:
Marianne Hansen
Sofia Catalina Fiorentino Sarrate is a Latinx multidisciplinary designer committed to changing the discourse of fashion as we know it by assigning value to our so-called “textile waste” within the fashion and textiles industries. Her work is informed by her latinx and design background founded in a scarcity framework in combination with closed-loop system implementation and up-cycling methods.

Credits: facedigital.dk
Helene Hsu is a textile rescuer from Re:wair, a nonprofit organiastion with a mission to fight textile waste, and VAER, an upcycled sneaker startup, that is dedicated to redefining what fashion means to us through togetherness and hands-on actions, by creating a platform in form of events and workshops where people across disciplines and background can connect.



IN-PERSON
STR R315/318
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin

SORRY, FULLY BOOKED.

BLUEPRINTS TOWARDS TEACHING FASHION WITH CARE 03
Friday 15 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 1 - 11.30 AM - 1.30 PM (CEST) 


Katherine May (UK)
supported by Julia Kunz (Head of screenprinting workshop, Berlin University of the Arts)

Unraveled garment pieces will be mapped and configured with our bodies by the sun using a cyanotype printing process. The print process is an accessible way to learn garment patterns by arranging unraveled clothes pieces onto body shapes and alongside our bodies. Serendipitously the process of exposing and imprinting adorns our bodies with the materiality of fashion and enlivens our connection and sense of responsibility to matter, beyond the idea of extraction. The collective cloth makes imagery, enmeshing bodies and matter together, a little pushback against the alienation the capitalist fashion system creates. It hangs as a blueprint for a de-fashioned classroom.







Katherine May works as a designer and educator, seeking to make space for conversations around fashion and care. She works by collecting clothes, textiles, and texts that are remixed and reassembled to form alternative ways of engaging with fashion. She is a lecturer in design at Goldsmiths University in London where she contributes to the MADEP programme as lead tutor of the Fashions and Embodiment studio - a space for expanding and experimenting with fashion practice.



IN-PERSON
STR R409
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin
Places are limited.
Registration is open until
10 September 2023.


THIS WORKSHOP IS TARGETED
TO SECONDARY SCHOOL
STUDENTS, YET OPEN TO ALL.

PUBLIC WORKSHOP - for kids teens and early birds

CRADLE TO CRADLE - » CLOSE THE LOOP! «
Friday 15 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 1 - 11.30 AM - 1.30 PM (CEST)


Helga Behrmann & Jutta Meisen & Christiane Schadow (Germany)

This didactic workshop dives into the Cradle to Cradle fashion and design education according to the requirements of the EU Green Deal. We learn about the five declarations of the Cradle to Cradle Manifesto for fashion and design education and open the perspective on the future of circular fashion design. In a cross-disciplinary surrounding we change between short discourses and practice to reflect about the meaning of the declarations. We learn about biodegradable and recyclable materials, designing a zero waste piece, crafting, repairing, and how to "Close The Loop!“.




Credits:
Lukas Stolle
Jutta Meisen, Hochschule Bielefeld, Fashion Design B.A., is one of the two founders of the upcycling fashion brand focusing on rescuing damaged wool fabrics from disposal and sharing their knowledge about repair, re-design, and zero waste design through workshops. As a member of the C2C NGO, she is involved in the endeavor of creating a circular fashion system.
Credits: R. Behrmann
Helga Behrmann, Potsdam University, PHD candidate "The Virtual Dress", is a lecturer on digital production processes and sustainable fashion. As a member of C2C NGO, she is currently working on a DIN/ISO standard for circular economy. She is also a member of netzwerk mode textil. After training in the fashion industry, she studied fashion design and communication design.

Christiane Schadow, Vocational School Berufliche Schule Hamburg Mitte, has trained apprentices of fashion retail in economics and textile focused on a sustainable textile industry. She is a member of Cradle to Cradle / Textile Alliance to exchange knowledge and the transformation in the textile industry. She studied general economics, pedagogy and textile science at the University of Hamburg.


IN-PERSON
START CONCERT HALL (UDK)
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin
Places are limited.
Registration is open until
10 September 2023.


THIS WALKING WORKSHOP
WILL BE FOLLWED BY AN
UPCYCLING WORKSHOP THE
NEXT CONFERENCE DAY.


WALKING WORKSHOP

WEAR IT A-GAIN #1 - TEXTILE JOURNEY

Friday 15 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 1 - 11.30 AM - 3:00 PM (CEST) 

BERTA ULRICH EMIL (Vanessa Buemann) CIRCULAR BERLIN
(Cherelle Escraffre & Sarah Keller) STREETWARE SAVED ITEM
(Alice Fassina) LOOPLOOK (Stefanie Barz& Alessandra-Isabel Hager) (Germany)
This event is kindly supported by Project Together / Circular Futures.

The A-Gain Guide team invites you on a mission to discover clothing reuse and repair options in Berlin! Join us as we walk the streets of Neukölln and utilize our digital guide tool to find local textile services! Along the way, we’ll rescue clothes discarded on the streets with the help of STREETWARE Saved Item, and learn more about textile waste issues. Please bring any clothing item(s) you want to be repaired or donated. Feel free to also follow our live broadcast on Instagram @a_gain_guide and/or to sign up for our following workshop the next day.

This walk starts at CONCERT HALL, meeting point for all participants in front of the main entrance. The walk lasts about three hours including time for commuting between conference venues and tour site by public transport and a lunch break at the tour site. Participants will return to the conference location STR, Strasse des 17. Juni 118. 

A valid ticket for public transport zone AB is required. Tickets are available at the station. Participants wishing to attend directly the tour from the site at Berlin-Neukölln will meet at 12:15 PM at Deutsche Bank, Hermannstraße 256 – 258 (close to U Hermannstr.).





Credits:
Cherelle Escaffre

Cherelle Escaffre is a sustainability professional with over 5 years of experience in driving companies and communities towards a more sustainable future. She launched a repair service for the global clothing brand UNIQLO and created RE.UNIQLO Studio, dedicated to extending the life of clothing. Her work at Circular Berlin includes launching the A-Gain Guide as well as piloting community-facing educational textile tours Textile Journeys.

Credits:Ruslana Kumantsova
Vanessa Buemann is founder of Berlin fashion label Berta Ulrich Emil crafting handmade crochet bags from recycled yarns and
upcycled jeans.


Credits:Jana Charlotte Tost
Stefanie Barz is a fashion sustainability strategist for digital platform solutions and holistic design concepts. Prior to developing LoopLook, she co-initiated the A-Gain Guide, worked as a Circular Innovation consultant for the Beneficial Design Institute, acquired fashion industry clients for the recycling certificate Flustix, held upcycling workshops, launched a fair jewelry line, and co-founded the online magazine & Berlin-based designer network Aethic for collective sales formats.



Credits:
Paolo Gallo
Alice Fassina's Streetware Saved Item transforms discarded textiles into prêt-à-porter and creates 'Social Sculpture'. As ragpickers they wander through the city, giving found material from the street a new life, challenging fast fashion, social identity and modes of production/consumption. Her work approach is based on sustainability and circularity. She imparts her knowledge also as a guide for Green Fashion Tours.




Credits: Julia Lee Goodwin + Büro Bum Bum
The A-GAIN GUIDE promotes the reuse of textile resources, strengthens local networks and infrastructures within a value-based community, and gives all stakeholders the visibility they deserve. The platform map and guide tools pave the way for consumers to find providers and contact points in Berlin for repairing, upcycling, donating, and recycling clothes and thus show the potential of worn-out clothing.

IN-PERSON
STR R402
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin

SORRY, FULLY BOOKED.


TACTILE MEMORY AND TECHNOLOGY: PRACTICES OF FORGETTING AND REMEMBERING
Friday 15 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 1 - 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM (CEST)


Christina Moon & Mary Ping (US)

This workshop explores varying fashion technologies as practices of remembering and forgetting to ask, what might this mean for a rapidly changing fashion education? What is the relationship between tactile memory and technology? How might this meditation make aware the history of expanding and dulling our senses, and the practices of remembering and forgetting that are embodied in technology itself? We see these questions on technology, making, skills, tools, touch, and education as part of a larger conversation on remembering and forgetting. Led by our collective skills, we will explore, experiment, share, make, and collectively remember interconnected histories, bridging critical research and practiced-based ways of learning.



Credits:
Joyce Ravid
Mary Ping is a New York based designer with an art background from Vassar College. In 2001, she launched her eponymous collection. Her conceptual line, Slow and Steady Wins the Race, followed in 2002. She is a winner of the 2017 Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Award, the Ecco Domani Award, and UPS Future of Fashion. Her work is part of the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Museum at FIT in New York, the RISD Museum, Deste Foundation in Greece, and the Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette in Paris. Ping is a member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America.


Credits: Ada Caccamise
Christina H. Moon is an Associate Professor in Fashion Studies in the School of Art and Design History and Theory at Parsons School of Design, The New School in New York. Her most recent project on the wardrobe explores the interplay of image, clothing, text and textiles through diaspora, exile, and longing. She is the author of Labor and Creativity in New York's Global Fashion Industry, with essays in Vestoj: the journal of sartorial matters.


IN-PERSON
STR R207
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin

SORRY, FULLY BOOKED.



REVISIONING FASHION
Friday 15 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 1 - 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM (CEST)


Savithri Bartlett & Zowie Broach & Delfina Fantini van Ditmar (UK)

The Fashion industry has adopted short-term horizons when meeting environmental and societal challenges. There is an urgent need, therefore, for a fundamental paradigm shift from the un-ecological systemic model of fashion to one that is regenerative and restorative. The ‘Revisioning Fashion’ workshop will explore alternative futures for fashion and design education. By moving away from the iconic designer, seasonal collections and fossil-fuel derivatives, how might fashion offer new ways to reconfigure our relation to the earth and its inhabitants? We will envision the responsibilities and creative avenues of the unbounded sensibilities of fashion designers who are committed to time and change.



photo: The Chronicles of a Bola (Waste) Girl Joyce Addai-Davis photographed in front of the Old Fadama landfill site in Accra, Ghana ©Raymond Nii Ayi Lamptey ( Nii Ayi VISUALS )


 
Dr Savithri Bartlett has 20 years' experience as Designer, Academic, Researcher. Her recent work as Project Lead at the Institute of Positive Fashion, British Fashion Council, involved mitigating clothing returns. A link to the report is here. Her current research focuses on the Global South threatened by exploitative models of clothing and food production.




Credits: Royal College of Art
Zowie Broach is the co-founder of BOUDICCA. As an educator she encourages students to transcend the conventions of the ‘graduate collection’, pushing them to question their own identity, values and aesthetic choices on a deeper level. Fashion at the RCA today is no longer solely about clothes, but instead a far-reaching and holistic investigation into the meaning of creativity itself.


Credits:
Pierre Bailly
Dr. Delfina Fantini van Ditmar is a biologist, design researcher and Senior Lecturer at the School of Design at the Royal College of Art. In 2022 Delfina was selected as a Design Researcher in Residency at the Design Museum to work on restorative practices. Her teaching practice focuses on ecological thinking, envisioning alternative futures and systemic responses to environmental collapse.
IN-PERSON

STR R207
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin


SORRY, FULLY BOOKED

ARE WE CREATING, BORROWING OR INVADING? AN ACTIVE EXPLORATION OF MULTI-AUTHORED AESTHETICS IN (DIGITAL) FASHION
Friday 15 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 2 - 3:00 - 5:00 PM (CEST)


Julia Kaleta & Chinouk Filique de Miranda (The Netherlands) supported by Carsten Behm (lecturer for digital fashion and modelling, Berlin University of the Arts)

Through an overwhelming input of images on a day-to-day basis, the online realm perpetuates a visual language of sameness. Collective consumption of aesthetics co-exists with the multi-authorship we fail to acknowledge in fashion education; namely, that aesthetics are not developed in a vacuum — they originate from works, makers, environments, and cultures that inspire and incentivize new adaptations of what already “is”. This research-through-making-session considers ways in which multi-authored aesthetics can be recognized and underscored. Through digital tools and templates, participants will reassess their online visual language to (re)acknowledge the lineage of inspiration in fashion.







Credits: Julia Kaleta
Julia Kaleta is a critical fashion practitioner, and author of Atlas of Sustainable Colour(s) - an ongoing research project into mapping alternative and innovative dyeing methods. Her interest in the aesthetic experience (mainly of colour) in fashion and its materiality is approached from a designer's perspective accompanied with a philosophical reflection and awareness of its social and environmental impact.


Credits:
Ashley Röttjers
Chinouk Filique de Miranda analyses, translates, and visualizes the crossover between the fashion system and digital culture with a focus on introducing digital literacy to fashion. In her practice, she approaches fashion as a subliminal communication vehicle which she aims to demystify in order to inform consumers on complex matters regarding individual agency within our current digital culture.



IN-PERSON

STR R002
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin


SORRY, FULLY BOOKED.


MAPPING THE SYSTEMIC REVOLUTION IN FASHION EDUCATION

Friday 15 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 2 - 3:00 - 5:00 PM (CEST)


Tanveer Ahmed & Ben Barry & Deborah Christel (US)

We invite you to join an event introducing the anthology Fashion Education: The Systemic Revolution (Intellect, 2023). Beginning with a short panel discussion, some of the book’s contributors will share how they have centered equity, inclusion, and social justice through revolutionary fashion pedagogies. Following the discussion, panelists will facilitate a workshop that invites attendees to identify, discuss and visualize their struggles and joys when mobilizing social justice in their classrooms. The outcome of the activity will highlight, in a collectively designed visual map, how systems of power and inequity surface when we engage in activist pedagogical work that disrupts dominant fashion education.




Credits: Kendall Meleski
Dr. Ben Barry is Dean and Associate Professor of Equity and Inclusion in the School of Fashion at Parsons School of Design. His academic leadership, teaching and research aims to confront, resist and transform the fashion system’s narrow ideas and ideals.

Credits:
Kade & Vos
Dr. Deborah Christel is a fat fashion designer, a size-inclusive business founder, and a former professor of plus-size design and fat studies. With over a decade of research examining weight bias in the fashion industry, her goal is to ensure bodies of all sizes have equal and equitable access to clothing they find desirable and comfortable.
Credits:
Coco Wu
Tanveer Ahmed is a practice-led fashion design researcher and anti-racist educator exploring ways to expose and re-think how dominant Eurocentric racial hierarchies are used as part of the fashion design process. I am a Senior Lecturer in Fashion and Race at Central Saint Martins working across the fashion program to support decolonial fashion perspectives.

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IN-PERSON
STR R008
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin

Places are limited.
Registration is open until
10 September 2023.
WALKING WORKSHOP

FIT BUT YOU KNOW IT: WALKING WORKSHOP

Friday 15 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 2 - 3:00 - 5:00 PM (CEST)


Sara Chong Kwan & Olivia Hegarty & Cian O’Donovan & Luke Stevens (UK)

Over the course of a guided walk in Mitte, participants will use movement, purpose-built garments, and their hands and bodies to explore a core concept in industrially-produced clothing: fit. Together we will address the challenge of decolonising fashion education by looking at fit as a fluid and open-ended process. Enlightenment values of universalism, underpinning global trade, see to the erasure of our tacit understanding of how to fit fabric to our own bodies. To help shift these epistemic power relations, participants will use sensory methods to interrogate fit as an embodied practice.

Participation is open to all bodies and abilities.















Olivia Hegarty is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Pattern Cutting at the London College of Fashion. Her areas of specialism in education are 3D experimentation, sustainability and values-led design. She has experience teaching internationally and advising on curriculum design in HE. She is also a design practitioner and consultant in the industry across menswear and womenswear.


Luke Stevens is the co-founder and designer of RANRA_Studio. The studio engages in multifaceted projects operating at a range of scales from textile development and product design to knowledge production and systems-level interventions. These projects act as a space for poetic yet pragmatic experimentation that challenges existing industry practices and continually questions how and why something is made.


Cian O'Donovan researches the impacts of digital transformation on public infrastructures for housing and social care. He uses this work to question the relationship between innovation and democracy, asking questions like who benefits from innovation, who pays for innovation, and who d


Sara Chong Kwan's research focuses around theoretical and methodological approaches to understanding the sensory and embodied dimensions of fashion and dress. Sara has convened a number of conferences and roundtables in this field and is currently Design Reviews Editor for the Senses and Society Journal. Her most recent publication is a chapter in Revisiting the Gaze: The Fashioned body and the politics of looking, published by Bloomsbury (2020).

IN-PERSON

STR R402
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin


SORRY, FULLY BOOKED.


ACTIVISM AND CARE: DE-FASHIONING FASHION CURRICULUM THROUGH TRANSFORMED AND INCLUSIVE PEDAGOGIES 

Friday 15 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 2 - 3:00 - 5:00 PM (CEST)
Lauren Downing Peters & Sara Idacavage & Katalin Medvedev (US) 

The goal of this workshop is to demonstrate practical ways in which de-fashioning can be implemented in fashion education through curricularizing community-oriented activities such as clothing swaps, mending circles, upcycling workshops, secondhand fashion shows, book clubs, and public exhibitions. The workshop pulls from the facilitators’ experiences teaching different types of fashion students (i.e., design, merchandising, advertising, journalism, etc.) to demonstrate the rich potential of interdisciplinary collaborations and engagement with local sites. After an introductory presentation, workshop participants will be challenged to collaborate and create new activities that blur the lines between activism and academia.




Credits:
Columbia College Chicago
Lauren Downing Peters, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Fashion Studies and Director of the Fashion Study Collection at Columbia College Chicago. She is the author of Fashion Before Plus-Size: Bodies, Bias and the Birth of an Industry (Bloomsbury, 2023) and the co-editor with Hazel Clark of Fashion in American Life (Bloomsbury, forthcoming).
Credits: Skyli Alvarez
Sara Idacavage is a fashion historian and material culture scholar who is passionate about sustainability and mental health awareness. She has taught at Parsons School of Design, the Pratt Institute, the Fashion Institute of Technology, and the University of Georgia, where she is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Textiles, Merchandising, and Interiors.


Katalin Medvedev is Professor of Socio-Cultural Aspects of Dress at the University of Georgia. Her articles have been published in Women’s Studies Quarterly; Fashion Practice; Dress; International Journal of Fashion Studies; Clothing Cultures; Fashion, Style and Popular Culture, etc. and in numerous book chapters by academic presses. Her co-edited book Fashion, Agency and Empowerment was published by Bloomsbury in 2019.

IN-PERSON
STR R309
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin


Places are limited.
Registration is open until
10 September 2023.



TENDING TRADITIONS: LEARNING TO REVERSE A GARMENT USING VIRADO

Friday 15 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 2 - 3:00 - 5:00 PM (CEST)


Daniela Toledo & Karolina Janulevičiūtė (Sweden)

The changes to any process in design always affects the outcome. Inspired by the video essay Virado: Unlearning Design Through Crafts (Toledo), which tells the story of a forgotten craft, this workshop aims to speculate on garment design using a technique that originated from scarcity as the basis for designing
and pattern creation. What kind of garment would it be? How much will we give up as creators to pursue an extendable cycle of wear that a piece can embody? Virado is a key to unlocking doors to female crafts, the role of materiality in domestic environments,
intergenerational crafts, appearance of garment’s shapes, and our
roles as consumers and designers of goods, anchored by a technique mainly applied and learned within the privacy of the domestic realm. The ideas of prolonging the life of a garment
through good care and time-investing operations resist following the existing notions and systems of garment production by default. This workshop will offer ground to think from point zero about how NOT to make garments the way they are made now; instead, choose to care for these pieces applying Virado.




Credits: Cristian Lorca Norambuena
Daniela Toledo is an industrial designer, holding a MA in Material Futures from Central Saint Martins. She recently joined the Research Lab CRAFT! at Konstfack. She has lived and worked in Chile, England, Germany, and China, and Sweden. She is interested in how crafts influence manufacturing techniques, feminine crafts, and the lack of documentation around them in the domestic space.
Karolina Janulevičiūtė is a fashion designer with a Master’s degreein Fashion, Clothing and Textile Design from Aalto University. She wasrecently part of the Research Lab 2023 in Crafts at Konstfack in Stockholm.


IN-PERSON

STR R409
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin

SORRY, FULLY BOOKED.

SECONHAND SPECULATION: COLLECTIVELY ENVISIONING THE FUTURE OF SECONDHAND THROUGH INDIGENOUS CRAFTING COMMUNITIES 

Friday 15 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 2 - 3:00 - 5:00 PM (CEST)

Zinzi de Brouwer & Linda Valkeman ( The Netherlands)

Secondhand Speculation is a speculative approach to the challenges of secondhand clothing waste the Global South communities are facing, in particular those of Ghana and Mozambique. Resilient systemic solutions are explored an interactive and playful way in order to provoke a critical and dynamic engagement, and centralise the dialogue on positive design speculations and justice-led circular systems. The participants are encouraged to co-create a speculative scenario through critical making - writing, sketching and drawing, in which system-thinking allows for future scenarios that  inform, centralise and integrate radical Indigenism through the complex secondhand clothing systems.





Credits: Maxime Cardol
Zinzi de Brouwer (she/her) is a fashion practitioner, writer, academic, creative director, and founder of Studio Palha, an equity-centered community design studio based in Mozambique and the Netherlands in which female artisans take central stage in co-weaving craft and design centered on Indigenous sovereignty.



Credits: Linda Valkeman
Linda Valkeman (she/her) is an artistic and operational think-tank with a background in fashion. Based in Ghana, she works at The Or Foundation, a non-profit organization operating at the intersection of environmental justice, education, and fashion development. The emphasis of her work is to catalyze a Justice-led Circular Economy in Accra, home to Kantamanto Market, the largest second-hand clothing market in the world.

IN-PERSON
STR R309
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin


Places are limited.
Registration is open until
10 September 2023.


HANDS-ON DE-FASHION EPISTEMOLOGY ZINE WORKSHOP

Saturday 16 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 3 - 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM (CEST)


Mi Medrado (Brazil)
supported by Pascal Kress (Artistic tutorial assistant Department of Visual Communication, Berlin University of the Arts)

The | Hands-on | De-fashion Epistemology action aims to exchange and elaborate a didactic material for classroom use.
It is debunking fashion epistemological's binarism, where the European-North American axis produces hard fashion knowledge and has - the - control to formalize the fashion education pedagogy and research topics. In contrast, 'sacrifice zones,' as soft fashion knowledge, are perceived outside the branch of corresponding validity, prestige, and rigor; we will delve into a transformative epistemological perspective to restitute what fashion has erased as knowledge and eliminated as practices.

Please bring craft supplies and materials to collaboratively create bringing into existence a zine that will intertwine the diversity of fashion teaching|learning cultures while exchanging through experimental writings and drawings: meanings to cross-disciplinary engage and trans-cultural forward theories, methods, practices, and politics of de-Fashion.






Credits: Gabriel Barros
Mi Medrado is a Brazilian anthropologist, editor, and decolonial fashion activist. Her doctoral research is on media and the fashion industry in the Global South (Brazil-Angola) at the Federal University of Bahia. She is the RCDF editor-in-chief and Latin American editor for Bloomsbury Business Cases. Medrado is a researcher of the Fashion and Decolonization: Global South Crossing working group -CoMoDE, and co-founder-researcher of the Decolonial Lab: Fashion and Entertainment in/from the Global South.





IN-PERSON
STR R402
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin


Places are limited.
Registration is open until
10 September 2023.



SENSORY PRACTICES IN FASHION DESIGN 

Saturday 16 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 3 - 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM (CEST)


Monika Dolbniak & Maureen Selina Laverty (Norway)

As fashion designers we are always crafting sensations, however, we rarely consider how these sensations affect the wearer's well-being. In this workshop, Monika and Maureen will introduce their complementary ways of working with people on the autism spectrum who can become overwhelmed by the sensory inputs in their environments. Through a series of exercises, attendees will be invited to take the time to consider their own sensory preferences and critically reflect on their experiences with their own practice of wearing clothing. The goal is to inspire a more inclusive and empathic approach to fashion education that considers diverse sensory needs.





Credits: Maureen Selina Laverty
Maureen Selina Laverty is a fashion and product designer. She is currently in her 3rd year of a practice-based PhD at NTNU in Norway. She spent 3 years in London as a tailor on Savile Row and at Alexander McQueen menswear, 5 years developing medical wearable technology in her native Ireland and the Netherlands, interlaced with masters studies in product design engineering.

Credits: Monika Dolbniak
Monika Dolbniak is a sensory designer and researcher. Through textiles, she explores how to design with senses to create multi-sensory products that improve object-user interaction and support autistic users' well-being. Monika’s background is in the fashion industry, she currently works as a sensory kids' wear designer and artist. She supplements her research with additional psychology studies and teaching experience in SEND.
 
IN-PERSON

STR R002
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin

Places are limited.
Registration is open until
10 September 2023.

SEMIOTICS OF SEWING

Saturday 16 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 3 - 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM (CEST)


Colectivo Malvestidas: Loreto Martínez & Tamara Poblete (Chile)

Inspired by Martha Rosler's video-performance “Semiotics of the Kitchen” (1975, 6 min.), the workshop seeks to transfer to fashion this parodic feminist critique that the author makes from the domestic, represented by the kitchen, as a space of violence. In the workshop “Semiotics of Sewing” we allude to the sewing room as a place where historically marginalised and feminised work is carried out.

From a previous selection of 12 objects involved in the production process of clothing made by Colectivo Malvestidas (Poorly Dressed Collective), we invite each participant to choose one and link it from their personal experience to a type of violence (symbolic, economic, physical, psychological, etc.) to generate a free-format text of a maximum of 250 words.

After collective reading and reflection, we invite participants to create a concrete and brief physical action that synthesises this violence and includes the chosen object.

The workshop ends with the audio-visual recording of each action for subsequent editing, thus forming a “cross-border archive” of collective denunciation of the violence that operates in both the study and practice of hegemonic fashion.





Credits: Juan Sebastián Domínguez
MALVESTIDAS
(Poorly Dressed) is a Chilean feminist collective formed in 2016 by the artists, researchers and curators Tamara Poblete and Loreto Martínez. They position themself politically from Latin America and embrace decolonial resistance practices to explore clothing as a powerful tool of authority and control, and also of empowerment and subversion. Their projects include performances, exhibitions, curatorial work, academic publications and conferences.




IN-PERSON


CONCERT HALL
Berlin University of Arts
Hardenbergstr. 33
10623 Berlin

Places are limited.
Registration is open until
10 September 2023.

No registration required.
Just join in.

DE-FASHION LEARNING & LIVING

Saturday 16 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 3 - 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM (CEST)


Oliver Ibert (Germany) & Dilys Williams (UK) & Katharina Deeken (hr Deeken, Germany) & Rahemur Rahman (United Kingdom) facilitated by Zowie Broach (UK)


Panel+. The panel discussion on De-Fashion Learning & Living will be followed by an open exchange on current dissonances and possibilities of learning fashion and living (off) fashion – in a de-growth context. We aim to open up the idea of expert knowledge to create an accessible and constructive exchange on education/industry relations.





ONLINE
New Zealand
Zoom access link
 

Places are limited.
Registration is open until
10 September 2023.


FASHION UTOPIAS: AN EXPLORATION OF THE POSSIBLE THROUGH A PLURIVERSAL LENS - WHAKAPAPA (GENEALOGY) KAITIAKITANGA (GUARDIANSHIP) AND MAURI WITH CLOTHES 

Saturday 16 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 3 - 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM (CEST)


Bobby Luke & Jennifer Whitty (New Zealand)

This workshop asks if can we shift our relationships to the human and nonhuman world through the conduit of our everyday clothing?. Drawing from non-Western perspectives, relationality, and interconnectedness, it offers a counterpoint to the dominant Western, capitalist, modernist way of thinking that is at the root of our separation from each other and has driven climate change. We will explore an indigenous lens to help us to understand the lifeforce of a garment as part of nature. Will we explore the quietly radical proposition, of what if fashion was a way of building relationships with each other and non-humans?






Jennifer Whitty (Muintir na hÉireann) is an Associate Professor of Design. She has worked globally as a designer, researcher, and educator in companies and institutions in the USA, Europe, Australasia, and Asia. Her work aims to usher in a new era of deep systemic change for fashion design that is expensive and diverse. Rooted in social and environmental justice but also coming from a place of joy, care, and playfulness.


Dr. Bobby Luke (Ngāti Ruanui), is part of the fresh vanguard of Fashion designers and researchers that demonstrate decolonial constructs of western fashion 'Making' and de-centralizing western design theory, emphasizing an authentic indigenous lens. Combining fine arts of multi-media visual nuances and decolonizing the lens Bobby is a multifaceted practitioner, pracademic (Practical academic) passionate about his culture and driving future pathways for generations behind him. Exploring a plethora of cultural ecologies Bobby's interests lie deep within his iwi and Hapu and the wider landscape of Aotearoa, New Zealand.

IN-PERSON
Fashion Image Collection – Lipperheide Costume Library
Kunstbibliothek Kulturforum
Matthäikirchplatz 6,
10785 Berlin

meeting point:
at the lockers in the entrance area of
Kunstbibliothek Kulturforum.

Places are limited.
Registration is open until
10 September 2023.


DARNING - THE ART OF PLUGGING HOLES

Saturday 16 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 3 - 12:00  - 2:00 PM (CEST)


Britta Bommert & Anja Leshoff (Germany)

Repairing clothes instead of throwing them away was a matter of course in the past. Currently, the sustainable use of clothing has come back into focus. First, we will offer a short introductory guided tour through the holdings of the Lipperheide Costume Library on the theme of repairing-techniques. In the practical workshop, you will gain hands-on experience in the historical techniques "darning" and "patching" of different textiles such as knits and wovens.

All materials for the workshop will be provided.

Anyone who would like to bring a defective garment for darning is very welcome to do so.





Credits: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Juliane Eirich
Britta Bommert has been curator of the Lipperheide Costume Library (Art Library Berlin) since 2017. She is currently working on an exhibition on the fashion photographer Rico Puhlmann. In 2021 she presented the exhibition “Claudia Skoda. Dressed to Thrill”. Previously she undertook research on the modern art market and exhibition designs of Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius.

Credits:
Anja Leshoff
Anja Leshoff studied fashion design at ESMOD Berlin, followed by art & art history at the University of Osnabrück. She is self-employmed in the design field and currently studies a master at the University of Osnabrück, subjects art & textile design, focusing on textile techniques & artistic implementation. She also works for the Draiflessen Collection Mettingen.
IN-PERSON
STR R402
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin

No registration required.
Just join in.

DE-FASHIONING EDUCATION REFLECTIONS & ACTIONS

Saturday 16 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 3 - 3:45 - 5:45 PM (CEST)

Franziska Schreiber & Renate Stauss & Valeska Schmidt-Thomsen (Germany)

We invite everyone to reflect on the conference and turn their reflections into actions. An open outcomes workshop. Come together and propose reflection/ actions groups to take place during the final conference session. We will begin in plenary, introducing the different groups that were proposed, breakout and work in those groups, to come together again at the end and share our results.










IN-PERSON
STR R008
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin


SORRY, FULLY BOOKED.


(LIFE) DRAWING FASHION AS A QUEER-FEMINIST PRACTICE 

Saturday 16 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 3 - 3:45 - 5:45 PM (CEST)


Xenia Fink & Leah Frey (Germany)

Drawing courses and books on fashion illustration and croquis perpetuate unrealistic silhouettes and stereotyped gender presentations. This default mode to render a “fashionable” figure skews our perception of bodies already in the design process. Together, we will workshop approaches to break up internalised drawing practices. By giving the model a voice in this multimodal presentation, we want to share how the performative potential of live drawing can expand how we represent bodies and which bodies are represented and experiment with you an approach to design which is true to our diverse bodies and gender expressions.




.
Credits:
Heike Steinweg
Xenia Mura Fink makes drawings on paper, installations, and animations. She employs representation to analyze recurring images, thinks them anew, and creates different readings. Her research into the charged intersection of figuration, desire and the gaze is driven by questions arising from her practice and from her teaching at fashion design departments in Halle, Bielefeld, and Berlin



Credits:
Leah Frey
Leah Frey is a fashion design student at Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle. When it comes to design, she has a great interest in sustainability and in experimenting with ways human bodies can be shaped through clothing. In her latest collections, Leah focused on how women’s bodies are depicted within media and our society as a whole.

IN-PERSON
STR R309
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin


SORRY, FULLY BOOKED.



WEAR IT A-GAIN – #2 UPCYCLING WORKSHOP

Saturday 16 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 3 - 3:45 - 5:45 PM (CEST)


Stefanie Barz & Vanessa Buemann (Germany)
supported by Dorothée Warning (Head of tailoring workshop, Berlin University of the Arts) & Julia Kunz (Head of screenprinting workshop, Berlin University of the Arts)

Join Circular Berlin & LoopLook as we get to know Berlin’s creative fashion upcycling scene and learn how to re-design and upgrade the clothes in our wardrobes. With the support of an upcycling designer from our A-Gain Guide platform, each participant will work on reinventing a previously unwanted garment, and leave the workshop with an original self-made piece, based on provided options. Bring your item(s), or take your pick from the rescued clothing we found in the first episode of Wear it A-Gain - #1 Textile Journey! Feel free to sign up and take part in this the day before.





Vanessa Buemann is founder of Berlin fashion label Berta Ulrich Emil crafting handmade crochet bags from recycled yarns and
upcycled jeans.


Credits:
Jana Charlotte Tost
Stefanie Barz is a fashion sustainability strategist for digital platform solutions and holistic design concepts. Prior to developing LoopLook, she co-initiated the A-Gain Guide, worked as a Circular Innovation consultant for the Beneficial Design Institute, acquired fashion industry clients for the recycling certificate Flustix, held upcycling workshops, launched a fair jewelry line, and co-founded the online magazine & Berlin-based designer network Aethic for collective sales formats.

IN-PERSON

STR R312/314
Berlin University of Arts
Strasse des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin
SORRY, FULLY BOOKED.

REFASHIONING KNIT 

Saturday 16 September 2023 - Collaborative Session 3 - 3:45 - 5:45 PM (CEST)


Huyen Mai Hoang & Jonathan Richter

In this workshop we will experiment with ways to rework vintage knitwear into desirable, contemporary pieces. We‘re going to partly open up knits and use their very own material to rebuild them in an updated manner, working on knitting machines.




Huyeng Mai Hoang is a third year fashion student at Berlin University of the Arts. She has always been hand knitting and crocheting but is venturing into machine knitting currently. In her work she likes to utilize handworking methods to address social topics personal to her.
Credits: Nikolaus Brade

Jonathan Richter is a third year fashion student at UdK and also tutor of the knitting workshop. He is interested in fashion technicalities like tailoring, patterning and knit construction. His work aims to creatively leverage those technical opportunities to help fashion move forward in a conscious way.























     

The Digital Multilogue on Fashion Education wants to create connections and actions within and across different fashion learning cultures and contexts. It was founded in 2019 as a participatory and outcome-oriented space and a series of conferences focused on the learning and teaching of fashion. It aims to explore and illustrate the diversity and complexity of the field and the practices of fashion education, and to foster a greater understanding of its pasts, presents and futures – methods, values and didactic, pedagogic and epistemological questions – creating a global exchange to inspire mutual learning, collaborative research and shared action.

The Multilogues are organized by Franziska Schreiber & Dr. Renate Stauss, who are brought together and driven by their love for making and wearing fashion, for learning and thinking through fashion, and their belief in its connective, educational and transformative potential.

• REGISTER NOW • THE DIGITAL MULTILOGUE ON FASHION EDUCATION  • 10 OCTOBER 2024 • 6–9 PM (CEST) 


ORGANISERS

Dr. Renate Stauss is Assistant Professor of Fashion Studies at The American University of Paris in the Department of Communication, Media and Culture. She is also a lecturer at the Berlin University of the Arts. 
Franziska Schreiber is a fashion designer and currently holds a professorship for „fashion I body I digitality“ at the Berlin University of the Arts.


FASHION IS A GREAT TEACHER – THE FASHION EDUCATION PODCAST

Fashion is a great teacher because it provides a fantastic lens to learn about the world and its people, about history, politics and culture. Join Renate Stauss and Franziska Schreiber, to discover the most inspiring voices in fashion education, their take on the how and why of learning and teaching fashion, their doubts and hopes, their lessons from fashion.




MULTILOGUE MOMENTS

This series of Fashion is a great teacher brings you Provocations and a Choir of Ideas from The Digital Multilogue on Fashion Education 2023: De-Fashioning Education; a Critical Thinking and Making Conference. We invited speakers from every continent to share their concerns, questions and ideas: Anjana Das, Mayank Mansingh Kaul, Sandra Niessen, Sunny Dolat, Otto von Busch, and Christina H. Moon, as they navigate the complexities of de-fashioning education, cultural inclusivity, sustainability, and transformative partnerships. This series invites listeners to join a global community rethinking fashion education for essential de-growth and diverse, interconnected futures.

Listen to the latest episode!
MULTILOGUE MOMENTS
Season 2 / Episode 4

Otto von Busch & Christina H. Moon  on ‘Fashion & Vitality’

This episode brings you ‘Fashion & Vitality’ – the Provocation Dialogue by Otto von Busch & Christina Moon at The Digital Multilogue on Fashion Education 2023: De-Fashioning Education – A Critical Thinking and Making Conference in Berlin.

Otto von Busch is Professor of Integrated Design at Parsons School of Design. In his research he explores how the powers of fashion can be bent to achieve a positive personal and social condition with which the Everyperson is free to grow to their full potential.

Christina Moon is an Associate Professor of Fashion Studies in the School of Art and Design History and Theory at Parsons School of Design, The New School in New York. Her most recent project on the wardrobe explores the interplay of image, clothing, text and textile through diaspora, exile, and longing.




THE FASHION EDUCATORS’ WORLD MAP

Come together! - towards a collaborative community of fashion educators. Join this global community mapping, inaugurated at The Digital Multilogue on Fashion Education 2020

Please join on Padlet!



FASHIONING EDUCATION

Fashioning education is a collaborative research initiative to open, facilitate and formalise the debate on fashion education against the backdrop of global social transformations.

Project website

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© 2022 Fashion is a great teacher

Franziska Schreiber & Renate Stauss GbR
Lychener Str. 82
10437 Berlin

design & implementation
Gina Mönch,  Anastasia Almosova

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