Fashion Fictions: expanding the possibility of sustainable fashion systems

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Twigger Holroyd, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3403-3516, 2024. Fashion Fictions: expanding the possibility of sustainable fashion systems. In: 4th Virtual Conference of the Possibility Studies Network 2025, Online, 20-21 January 2025.

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Abstract

Fashion Fictions, an international collective imagination project, was inspired by frustration at the incrementalism that characterises action for sustainability in the fashion system – and a widespread sense that radical action is unrealistic or even impossible (Fisher 2009; Escobar 2023). This sense has far-reaching consequences, for actual possibility is shaped by beliefs about viability (Wright 2010).

The project, founded in 2020 and involving over 5000 participants to date, brings people together to imagine, explore and reflect on engaging fictional visions of sustainable fashion systems. It has a three-stage structure: writing outlines of fictional parallel worlds; creating visual and material prototypes; and enacting a world’s events and practices. The playful exploration of positive yet implausible scenarios is designed to broaden our collective vocabulary of ways that we might live with our clothes and build a sense that very different systems could be possible.

This presentation will share insights regarding the shifts in perspective generated through Fashion Fictions activities, drawing on data generated via eight 1–2 day workshops and enactment activities run by the researcher, plus reflective responses from facilitators and participants involved in affiliated activities in other contexts. Three concepts will be used to discuss these insights. The first is boundary shifts: changes in the boundaries between impossible, possible and actual (Zittoun, Hawlina and Gillespie 2021). The second is wonder, an emotion that creates an awareness of alternative perspectives on the world around us (Glăveanu 2020). The third is embodied capacity: the way in which enactment can create new bodily behaviours, ripe for future restoration (Schechner 2013).

When at their most effective, Fashion Fictions activities can prompt participants to shift their stance, from a resigned ‘that’s never going to a happen’ to a defiant, hands-on-hips ‘why isn’t this already happening?’. This expansion of possibility is crucial for change in fashion systems, for it lays the foundations for progressive and radical ideas to be discussed, developed and potentially taken forward – rather than immediately dismissed.

Item Type:	Conference contribution
Creators:	Twigger Holroyd, A.
Date:	16 December 2024
Identifiers:	Number Type 2376653 Other
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham School of Art & Design
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	17 Feb 2025 12:06
Last Modified:	17 Feb 2025 12:06
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53054