DEMOCRATISING AND DECENTRALISING FASHION SHOWCASING

Since 2017, Fashion Revolution Open Studio has developed as a global showcase, offering designers around the world a unique opportunity to show their work on an equal footing, and allowing the small and radical to be heard and have a space to be noticed. There have been Fashion Revolution Open Studio events across six continents and many countries, from The Netherlands to Zimbabwe.

There are a range of different formats, both in real life but also –since the lockdowns of the pandemic made physical events impossible – digital events which have allowed open access to designers whose businesses (and small studios) would not previously have seen. Fashion Revolution Open Studio has created an ecosystem of small businesses and service providers who are able to exchange knowledge and access expert and peer-to-peer mentoring. The problems facing the fashion industry caused by the climate emergency and inequalities between the global north and the global south are universal, and we need a global, decentralised approach to enable localised issues to be connected so that they can be seen and treated as part of a bigger picture. The only way to fix issues like pollution, excessive production, solutions for reducing the amount of pre-and-post consumer textiles, waste colonialism where brands – and entire countries – push their clothing waste onto developing markets in South America, west Africa, and Asia, is to have a global approach.

As Fashion Revolution transitions from a UK based CIC to a devolved, decentralised network, so too Fashion Revolution Open Studio’s organisational structure is evolving. Up to now, participants were invited to apply to take part via an open call and then selected according to the criteria by a panel, making it Fashion Revolution’s only curated programme. The reason the programme was curated, with a criteria and a selection process, was to ensure that the designers or businesses met the criteria, and to bring a level of quality, so that it could compete alongside existing showcases put forward by the world’s recognised fashion weeks. Going forward, the methodology for the devolved programme will be up to each team to consider and this is still under discussion.