Image by: Alexander Andrews
Critical Fashion Studies Symposium
RMIT University
January 2025
Toward a Circular Economy: Rethinking Clothing and Textile Practices
From clothing repair cultures and upcycling to textile reuse and disposal, understanding the life cycle of clothing and textiles has become a critically urgent problem for the fashion and textile industry as well as individual consumers. In this symposium we explore a range of methods and approaches that address over-consumption, disposal practices, repair and re-manufacturing and the challenges posed by a shift from a linear manufacturing economy to a circular manufacturing economy and the implications for ordinary consumers, businesses, and policy.
Three panel discussions will explore:
Circularity and Disposal
Wardrobe Stories
Remaking and Repair
Critical Fashion Studies International Conference
The University of Melbourne
February 2020
The aim of this conference was to build academic research and industry networks to address a range of themes relevant to the future of fashion, including: sustainable and ethical fashion production and consumption; fashion start-ups and economic sustainability; corporate models of social responsibility and transparency; "slow" fashion and new economies of value; critical femininities and the feminization of fashion production and consumption; fashion entrepreneurs in South-East Asia and the Pacific; and local and global labour practices.
Hosted by the Critical Fashion Studies research collective in the School of Culture and Communication, at the University of Melbourne, the conference included keynote lectures from established international scholars and fashion industry panels, as well as academic papers from postgraduate students, early career researchers, and scholars working on fashion from a range of disciplines and methodologies.
Image by: Stephanie McLeod