Revisiting Fashion Education: Inspiring Transformative Learning Experiences for Fashion Design Students

In her manifesto ANTI_FASHION: A manifesto for the next decade, trend forecaster Li Edelkoort claims that most fashion institutions encourage student designers to become unique individuals who aspire to future roles as celebrity runway designers for luxury brands (Edelkoort, 2014). A survey of five leading international undergraduate fashion design courses does not support this claim, instead revealing curriculum that engages with sustainable fashion design practices such as collaboration and exchange. In addition, current literature indicates that transformative learning theory and teaching practice appear to be the main drivers for change, in delivering content around sustainability at a tertiary level, within similar design disciplines such as architecture. This paper argues that transformative learning theory and teaching practices can also be applied to fashion education to promote change-orientated fashion practices amongst design students. A clear example of this theory in practice is the Nike Sustainable Materials Project; a partnership between London College of Fashion (LCF), its Centre for Sustainable Fashion (CSF) and Nike team members. This project aimed to “mobilize makers” into creating “aestheticallyrelevant, beautifully-crafted products that illuminate sustainability as a driver of innovation” (LCF, 2016). A case study analysis of the project demonstrates how integrating these two theories, transformative learning and teaching practice, with traditional notions of fashion education created an environment that enabled student designers to critically reflect on the current fashion system. The proposition is that the collaborative nature of the project, combined with the diverse experiences contributed by the participants, can provide an ideal setting to challenge students’ perceptions of fashion design and the role of the future fashion designer.