Designing fashion fictions: speculative scenarios for sustainable fashion worlds

Twigger Holroyd, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3403-3516, 2019. Designing fashion fictions: speculative scenarios for sustainable fashion worlds. In: The Design After: Cumulus Conference proceedings, Bogota 2019. Bogota: Universidad de los Andes, pp. 341-351. ISBN 9789587749120

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Abstract

The globalised fashion and textile industry is deeply implicated in the devastation of Earth’s life-supporting systems. Industry-led sustainability initiatives have been incremental and inadequate; fundamental change is required to develop an approach to fashion that works within the means of the planet. Potential for transformation is limited by a collective inability to contemplate alternatives to the status quo. A newly established research project, Fashion Fictions, responds to this challenge. It will imagine, prototype and analyse enticing alternative fashion worlds through a playful and collaborative design process in order to research people’s attitudes to the future.

A literature review demonstrates that this project is a work of design fiction: an emerging field which takes design from its commercial
context to explore political, social and cultural issues via speculative ‘what-if’ scenarios. Yet much design fiction divides the ‘expert’ designer from a passive, voiceless audience. The related fields of interventional anthropology and experiential futures offer critical and methodological guidance for a much more participatory approach, in which designer and participants become co-researchers, learning together about visions of the future. Drawing on these influences, a three-stage process for the research is outlined.

A reflective analysis offers an insider view of the first stages of the design fiction project. It discusses the complexities of developing a detailed design brief, which involves the construction of parallel presents, rather than future scenarios; specifies three key parameters that shape the fictions being devised (possible; sustainable and satisfying; based on diverse economies); and identifies various potential sources of inspiration.

Item Type:	Chapter in book
Description:	Proceedings of The Design After: Cumulus Conference, Bogota, Columbia, 30 October - 1 November 2019.
Creators:	Twigger Holroyd, A.
Publisher:	Universidad de los Andes
Place of Publication:	Bogota
Date:	2019
ISBN:	9789587749120
Identifiers:	Number Type 1259531 Other
Divisions:	Schools > School of Art and Design
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	19 Dec 2019 10:39
Last Modified:	19 Dec 2019 10:39
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/38888

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