WSA Fashion & Sustainability Forum 2023
On 8 and 9 March, the Winchester School of Art (WSA) Fashion and Sustainability Forum returned; an annual event inviting students, staff, and industry to connect to discuss today’s fashion industry and sustainability.
Now in its sixth year, the Fashion and Sustainability forum was introduced in 2016 by Delia Crowe, Programme Leader MA Fashion Design, with the primary goal of embedding sustainability into the curriculum across the school.
The focus of this year’s two-day forum was ‘materials’, welcoming guest speakers from a range of organisations who have sustainability at the forefront of their agenda, including Charles Ross from RCA, Mohair SA, British Alpaca Fashion Company, Cornish Plastic Pollution Coalition, The Natural Fibre Company and more.
Guest and staff speakers shared presentations, enjoyed networking and a drinks reception, a mini sustainable fabric fair, and the opportunity to celebrate MA Fashion Design and MA Textile Design Interim exhibitions on display across the Winchester School of Art campus.
Delia Crowe, MA Programme Leader Fashion Design and Founder and convenor of the WSA Fashion & Sustainability Forum and Materials Lab explained:
“In a ‘divide and conquer’ fashion industry, systems are intentionally kept apart in order to obfuscate the issue of sustainability. But it is not a trend; it should be the cornerstone that supports the whole curriculum.
How do we teach our students to engage with the contemporary debates around the issues of sustainability and regeneration? How to enable them to challenge assumptions and become empowered collaborators, innovators, and responsible designers when built-in-obsolescence has become the norm.
In a modern era, fashion cycles have become increasingly shorter and faster, and materials have lost their true value. Post-pandemic, we must look at the bigger picture and start to reconnect the interconnected and overlapping strands of a global industry; to reconsider and redesign a different set of values for the fashion system as it currently exists, so we can move forward responsibly and sustainably.”
#WSASustainabilityForum
Running alongside the forum were exhibitions, Wastework, on display at The Winchester Gallery until 15 April, and student exhibitions, MA Fashion Design interim show ‘The White Project’, and MA Textile Design interim show ‘19 .