The Transformative Power of Practice-based Fashion Research

The advent of the twenty- first century ushered in a new generation of fashion designers who merge design, artistic practice and research in a natural way. They use artistic and activist interventions to revision fashion as a cultural and symbolic value- adding component integral to post- industrial restructuring and repositioning it as a much broader and more significant role than as an industry that makes and sells apparel (Craik 2019: 133). This generation is not necessarily operating from fashion capitals such as London or Paris, but quite often based in the outskirts of the fashion areas (such as Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden or Austria). Being aware of the social and environmental issues and the failures of the current fashion system, they are fundamentally rethinking and redefining the fashion system by implementing new values and new imaginations approaching fashion design as an embodied practice and as an activist tool Based on the research for the exhibitions The Future of Fashion in Now (2014) and State of Fashion (2018) – where I showcased these ground- breaking designers – I draw and define this ‘new hybrid designer’ and highlight how they as activists and practitioners effectively contribute to some of the fundamental changes of the current fashion system (Teunissen 2018).