Some major changes in the social and economic structures of European countries occurred during the last decades. The phenomena related to globalization, sustainability and digital revolution reshaped the goods and symbols of production, introducing new factors and variables especially in the creative sector.

Fashion and its universes became prisms through which many contemporary issues are being refracted. Now there is the need to critically rethink some crucial aspects of its world related to material and immaterial production.
Representing one of the largest industries globally today, fashion displays very clearly how globalized growth works and how the economic systems are far from being balanced.
The fashion system as we see it today is the product of a large number of merges and acquisitions up through the 1980’s and 1990’s; now, very few players tend to control very large shares of the global market.

At the same time, labour markets are in a process of constant flexibilisation that leads to a precarisation of life careers. These dynamics are particularly clear in some sectors of material production, while in others, more related to immaterial production,
they have been much more hard to identify.

In this context, recent transformations in craft and design (and, more generally, in all the sectors of creative economy) have considerably reshaped the social words of production and their relationship with all the other aspects of social life. Phenomena like the Web 2.0, the long tail effect, peer-production, open-source and crowdsourcing are reshaping the meaning of innovation from social, cultural and economic point of view.

EDUfashion conference will focus on these major themes, exploring the current developments more likely to revolutionize the fashion sector in the near future.

Program:

2nd of June 2011 from 9.30 am

Introduction and Moderation - Oliver Vodeb and Maja Hawlina - Poper

EDUfashion speeches:
- Adam Arvidsson/Nicolai Peitersen - FPS/EE "Open-source brand and ethical economy"
- Oleg Koefoed - Copenhagen Business school  - ”Sustainability in fashion – reflections on new challenges and innovations in the fashion industry”
- Bertram Niessen/Zoe Romano - FPS/EE-  "Makers&DIY and fashion innovation"
- Almira Sadar, Nataša Peršuh - NTF -  " How to cooperate with local producers to achieve a new design"


External invitations speeches:
Massimo Menichinelli  -Alvar Aalto University, Helsinki - "On Open Business Models"
Alina Breuil - London College of Fashion -  "Interactive design - How to share Clothing"
Franc' Pairon - Institut Français de la Mode, Paris - "Creation between transgression and respect"
Jennifer Ballie - Chelsea College of Art & Design - "Co Everything: Defining Co-Design for Fashion & Textiles"

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Students fashion show at 9pm: LIGHT
Students of Textile and  Fashion Design presenting  their final collections which represent different topics about light.

CENTER URBANE KULTURE KINO ŠIŠKA - Department of Textiles, NTF, University of Ljubljana
 

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The day before Edufashion Conference:

Workshop by Alina Breuil - 1st of June

Draping on the stand is all about listening to the fabric, and also to your senses. There is a particular sensitivity reached when working on the stand which is very difficult to emulate on flat pattern cutting.

Using a chosen object as inspiration, we will create a garment draped on the stand. Through the exploration of the object, we will also explore techniques for draping.

Think of ways in which to express this object:

what does it taste like?
what does it feel like?
what does it smell like?

you are most welcome to bring boards to represent taste, feel, smell.

Materials requirements:
calico medium weight
wading

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EDUfashion conference will take place at Department of Textiles, NTF, Snežniška 5, Ljubljana, Slovenia parallely to the 42° Symposium about Novelties in Textiles.

For more info please refer to info@edufashion.org

EDUfashion, the european funded project for ethical fashion creation, new attitudes and continuous education has unveiled their online platform Openwear and is launching it with a 3-day event during the design week in Milan from the 14th to the 16th of april

The event starts on thursday the 14th with a conference session hosted by the University of Milan discussing new ways of organizing creative collaboration to explore alternative to the precarious labor conditions in the creative sector. Keynote speaker Angela McRobbie from Goldsmiths College of London.

On Saturday an Openwear workshop is taking place, held by Serpica Naro. We’ll put our hands on old shirts and upcycle them following the instruction of Openwear’s Lookmaps.

Download the Press Release in PDF and read more about it.