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UAL Research Online

Fashion education as a practice of freedom

Ahmed, Tanveer and Barry, Ben (2023) Fashion education as a practice of freedom. In: FASHION IN 3D: Decolonizing Deconstructing Decentering, ZoneModa, International Conference 2023, 19-21 October 2023, University of Bologna.

Type of Research: Conference, Symposium or Workshop Item
Creators: Ahmed, Tanveer and Barry, Ben
Description:

How can we work towards a decolonized, anti-racist, bodymind loving, non-binary fashion system to shape inclusive ways of teaching and learning? The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated fashion education’s active role in the current global polycrisis, with its systemic roots in the violent histories of colonialism, enslavement and global capitalism. In this keynote, we build upon our contributions in Fashion Education: The Systemic Revolution and amplify the movement of fashion educators who are confronting these ongoing histories of harm through everyday pedagogical practices. We heed bell hooks and engage in dialogue to envisage fashion education as a practice of freedom: we bring together anti-racist and anti-ableist frameworks and pedagogical practices to propose how we might collectively occupy spaces of fashion education to orient social justice.

Working collectively, we invite our audience to take apart a garment that they have brought with them by unpicking the garment stitches. Through this process of fashion deconstruction, we ask our audience to reflect on the joy, pain and memories of fashion that connect us all. We will also share examples from our work as fashion educators—grounding our stories in a humble recounting of our own embodiments and situated knowledges in fashion schools in the U.S. and U.K.

Through the process of unpicking fashion, with our audience we will question how social justice-oriented fashion education practices might emerge from critical intellectual traditions built upon dissent and counter hegemonic struggles of marginalized peoples. We will reflect upon who made our garments, how the fabric was woven or spun, embellished and sewn and what is at stake for each of us as we work to change fashion education. Our keynote offers the themes of place, time and care as a guide for fellow fashion educators to draw upon as they develop their own approaches for mobilizing fashion education as a practice of freedom.

Official Website: https://eventi.unibo.it/fashion3d
Your affiliations with UAL: Colleges > Central Saint Martins
Date: 19 October 2023
Event Location: University of Bologna
Date Deposited: 14 Aug 2025 15:53
Last Modified: 14 Aug 2025 15:53
Item ID: 24594
URI: https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/24594

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