Keynote Speakers

How can we work towards a decolonized, anti-racist, bodymind loving, non-binary fashion system to shape inclusive ways of teaching and learning fashion? The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated fashion education’s active role in the current global polycrisis, with its systemic roots in the violent histories of colonialism, enslavement and global capitalism. In this practice-led keynote, we build upon our contributions in Fashion Education: The Systemic Revolution and amplify the movement of fashion educators who are confronting these ongoing histories of harm through everyday pedagogical practices. We heed bell hooks and engage in dialogue to envisage fashion education as a practice of freedom: we bring together anti-racist and anti-ableist frameworks and pedagogical practices to propose how we might collectively occupy spaces, including our keynote, to orient social justice. Working collectively, our keynote invites the audience to question the fashion system by taking apart a garment that they have brought with them, unpicking the garment stitches. Through this process of fashion deconstruction, we ask them to reflect on the joy, pain and memories of fashion that both connect and disconnect us from one another. We also share examples from our work as fashion educators—grounding our stories in a humble recounting of our own embodiments and situated knowledges in fashion schools in the U.S. and U.K. Through the actions of unpicking fashion, we will question how social justice-oriented fashion education practices might emerge from critical intellectual traditions built upon dissent and counter hegemonic struggles of marginalized peoples. We will reflect upon who made our garments; how the fabric was woven or spun, sewn, embellished and worn; and what is at stake for each of us as we work to change the fashion system. We will then ask the audience to write or draw on their unpicked garment, sharing one approach that they commit to doing or to continuing to de-link fashion education from dominant structures of power. Next, as a group, we will collectively reconstruct our garments to create a connected canvas in order to manifest how relationality, community and interdependence must serve as the foundation for mobilizing fashion education as a practice of freedom.

How can we work towards a decolonized, anti-racist, bodymind loving, non-binary fashion system to shape inclusive ways of teaching and learning fashion? The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated fashion education’s active role in the current global polycrisis, with its systemic roots in the violent histories of colonialism, enslavement and global capitalism. In this practice-led keynote, we build upon our contributions in Fashion Education: The Systemic Revolution and amplify the movement of fashion educators who are confronting these ongoing histories of harm through everyday pedagogical practices. We heed bell hooks and engage in dialogue to envisage fashion education as a practice of freedom: we bring together anti-racist and anti-ableist frameworks and pedagogical practices to propose how we might collectively occupy spaces, including our keynote, to orient social justice. Working collectively, our keynote invites the audience to question the fashion system by taking apart a garment that they have brought with them, unpicking the garment stitches. Through this process of fashion deconstruction, we ask them to reflect on the joy, pain and memories of fashion that both connect and disconnect us from one another. We also share examples from our work as fashion educators—grounding our stories in a humble recounting of our own embodiments and situated knowledges in fashion schools in the U.S. and U.K. Through the actions of unpicking fashion, we will question how social justice-oriented fashion education practices might emerge from critical intellectual traditions built upon dissent and counter hegemonic struggles of marginalized peoples. We will reflect upon who made our garments; how the fabric was woven or spun, sewn, embellished and worn; and what is at stake for each of us as we work to change the fashion system. We will then ask the audience to write or draw on their unpicked garment, sharing one approach that they commit to doing or to continuing to de-link fashion education from dominant structures of power. Next, as a group, we will collectively reconstruct our garments to create a connected canvas in order to manifest how relationality, community and interdependence must serve as the foundation for mobilizing fashion education as a practice of freedom.

This lecture will discuss several interconnected themes related to fashion-making, particularly in the context of China and its relationship with the broader global fashion landscape. It will evaluate the ways in which its prominent role in global production and trade has challenged the centrality of fashion history. China serves as a key manufacturing hub, a major consumer market, a source of design talent, and a driver of fashion tech. Its economic and political influence has ramifications for the global fashion industry. Trade policies, tariffs, and geopolitical tensions led by China have impacted the fashion industry's operations, supply chains, sourcing decisions, and creativity. In the same vein, there are convoluted debates about China’s economic expansion, geopolitical influence, and foreign policy as a new form of colonialism. Deconstructing fashion-making in the 21st century reveals the underlying power dynamics, cultural influences, and inequalities promulgated by China. The talk will underline the socio-cultural, political, and economic dynamics between China and other regions in the fashion industry through cultural exchange, globalization, trade, and collaborations. It takes de/recolonizing as a nuanced approach to consider both efforts to dismantle colonial legacies and potential new forms of influence or control in the context of China. Underpinning the established norms, power structures, and historical legacies are the complexities of decolonization and the evolving global fashion landscape.

In this lecture I will explore how to take off from 3D: how to move on, ahead, or sideways from the ‘de’ in decolonizing, deconstructing and decentering the field of fashion. By now, as fashion scholars we probably know how to do interdisciplinarity. We may know how to go beyond binary oppositions by multiplying and diversifying theories and perspectives in fashion studies. We may recognise how to construct inclusive communities of scholars and practitioners. We are (albeit belatedly) learning to decolonize our teaching and our writing. And yet. We may need to push further towards an ethics of care if we want to achieve a more ethical fashion system as well as more radical and inclusive fashion studies. I suggest to employ the Buddhist practice of mindfulness as a way of achieving such deep processes of change. Mindfulness is understood as compassionate care, loving kindness and openhearted attention. A mindful approach to our practice as scholars will enhance not only our ethical competence, but also the quality of our research work, infusing knowledge production with a distributed and wide-ranging, transnational sense of justice, care and love.

In recent years, the issue of “decolonizing” museum collections has become increasingly important for museum directors and curators. Many museums prominently feature masterpieces derived from global imperial plunder, and a number of countries have long demanded their return. With a few exceptions, such as Montezuma’s crown, these tend not to be items of dress. However, the concept of decolonizing the museum goes beyond the actual theft of objects during periods of overt western imperialism. Museums conserve cultural objects, and also educate the public about these objects. Yet, in western museums, the voices of those whose lands and treasures were stolen are usually silenced. This problem is exacerbated by the lack of diversity within museums. As Lonnie Burch put it: “The museum field is awash in whiteness.” Museums with fashion collections also need to deconstructing the concept of “fashion” itself. When is an object worn on the body accessioned into a museum collection as “fashion”? -- and when is it listed as “dress”? When African objects are routinely accessioned as “dress” rather than “fashion,” is this the result of “persistent colonial frameworks? Should non-western objects be “reframed, reimagined and restaged” as fashion, in the process enlarging “the canon of fashion.” Fashion curators and historians are increasingly trying to decolonize or decenter the canon. Rather than just focusing on Euro-American figures like Chanel and Dior, which reinforce a white and western hegemonic narrative, they are trying include examples of fashion by so-called BIPOC designers, i.e. Black, Indigenous, “people of color” designers. “Decolonization is acknowledging and addressing all of the systemic barriers that were created through the legacy of colonialism and imperialism,” says Kim Jenkins, founder of the Race and Fashion Database.