The London College Of Fashion Course Re-Imagines How We Interact With Fashion

Image Courtesy of London College of Fashion

Placing sustainability at the heart of fashion practice to help shape the next generation of designers, researchers and pioneers is MA Fashion Futures (MAFF) at London College of Fashion, UAL.

Students explore and develop experimental fashion practices and theoretical perspectives, using a diverse range of methodologies and technologies, to critique and transform the current fashion industry.

For first time in history, UAL have created an online showcase which allows the public to explore the work of all of UAL’s graduates in one curated space – UAL Graduate Showcase.

To celebrate its launch, we wanted to highlight five graduate projects from MA Fashion Futures, because as MAFF Acting Course Leader, Katelyn Toth-Fejel notes – “a meaningful change towards sustainability will require the transformation of our society at every level and these graduates are helping to re-imagine how we interact with fashion to develop more sustainable and fulfilling fashion experiences.”

“The MAFF graduates have investigated current fashion systems and diverse experiences to develop interdisciplinary research projects combining social and cultural knowledge with new technologies and design practice. They exemplify the new role of designers as critical thinkers and creative disrupters, pushing for a more sustainable and equitable future.”

Chinese millennials and Gen Z consumers have become the main force of luxury consumption.

Behind the seemingly phenomenal growth in consumption are many young people who have not reached the economic level of consuming luxury goods.

 Examples of deformed consumer culture in China like kidney trading for iPhones or ‘naked loans’, are the starting point of this project.

Chenxin Wang‘s project uses the semiotic language of Chinese social media.

The ironic imagination of this consumption culture is explored using speculative design methods and photography.

What if clothes and memories exist together? If we value our memories, we will inevitably value our clothes.    

Storing memories in our clothing is a speculative design project that encourages an emotional relationship with our clothing.

This relationship is deemed to slow the rate of consumption caused by fashion obsolescence. 

 Abhinov created clothing that comes to life in a virtual world, this piece of clothing has a soul, consciousness and some memories.

It is powered by data, this data is from you.

This clothing is a part of you and your consciousness. 

His project started with an exploration of the longevity of a product and user-product relationships, and took a techno-spiritual turn towards the end; together aimed at critiquing the current system to create an alternate future.

Imaging a world where our clothes are alive and have consciousness. When you are having a conversation with your friend, even your clothes are listening to those conversations and storing them in their own imaginary brains.

Abhinov created an augmented reality application which stores digital versions of my friends and their voice messages. The garment will come to life when you point the phone camera at me.