Decolonising Fashion Systems: Navigating Frictions in a Designer’s Collaboration with a Vietnamese Silversmith Artisan Contributing to Culturally Sustainable Fashion Futures

The paper draws from ongoing practice-based PhD research grounded in the first author’s decade-long embedded practice within non-Western systems. Situated within Vietnam’s complex socio-cultural context, the research is shaped by lived experience, long-term relationships, and the guidance of cultural stewards who act as translators, mediators, and custodians of knowledge. This paper discusses how designer-artisan collaborations are sites of both friction and learning, where misalignment and discomfort become productive forces for rethinking knowledge and authorship. Decolonising practice requires slow, sustained engagement and the willingness to confront personal and systemic biases, not theoretical frameworks alone. Each misunderstanding carries value, contributing to a more equitable model of collaboration that evolves through practice. The project discussed in this paper adopts Participatory Practice Research as a strategy, combining Practice Research with Participatory Action Research, drawing on Metadesign, and the Capabilities Approach. Focusing on a collaboration between a designer working at Fashion4Freedom and a Vietnamese silversmith artisan, and with support from the Centre for Cultural Preservation and Economic Development, the paper offers a reflective account of navigating frictions, intentions, and consequences. It discusses the development of the 25% bonus payment structure as a tangible outcome that rebalances power and recognises value. Centring knowledge systems and cultural agency from the Global South, the paper explores how

designer–artisan collaborations can contribute to decolonising dominant fashion practice. This implies positioning the designer–researcher not as the authority defining cultural sustainability but as a collaborator accountable to artisans and cultural stewards. The insights offered in this paper may help others, such as designers, researchers, NGO and social enterprises, navigating ethical and cultural challenges in collaborative design, while future research could explore the adaptation of the bonus structure and emerging learnings across other cultural contexts.