Reimagining Fashion – Silhouettes and Speculative Trends
Reimagining Fashion is a thesis project that explores how participatory workshops can foster reflection and behavior change around fashion consumption and waste. Through a series of hands-on workshops targeting young adults, participants reimagine unsellable second-hand garments using unconventional silhouettes and creative constraints.
The current state of the fast fashion industry shows that it remains the preferred choice over sustainable alternatives due to its affordability and accessibility. A significant factor driving this trend is the influence of social media. In today’s fast-paced society, influencers and online platforms dictate and accelerate fashion cycles, consistently introducing new trends to maintain engagement and encourage continuous consumption. This rapid turnover not only prompts people to buy more to keep up with the latest styles but also creates social pressure to “fit in.”
Reimagining Fashion Workshop
I used the workshop as a design method to gather insights from my participants as well as to observe their conversations and behaviors throughout the tasks they were performing. The purpose of the workshop was to explore speculative fashion design by working with silhouettes and trends, challenging participants to rethink their relationship with clothing, trends, and consumption.
In my workshop, speculative fashion is used as a method to challenge dominant fashion norms and expectations. For instance, I posed the question: “What if trends changed every day?” a prompt that destabilizes the concept of trends and reveals just how unsustainable our current fashion system really is. Participants are encouraged to work with distorted silhouettes and unconventional shapes, reimagining clothing in ways that defy what is socially acceptable or commercially viable. This design approach invites participants to think critically, not only about what they wear, but why they wear it, and what larger systems their choices support.
The workshop was structured into eight sections: Introduction, Background on Fast Fashion, Reflection (Beforehand), Hands-on Work, Planting a Seed, Reflection (Afterwards), Presentation, and Discussion.
During the hands-on portion, participants were asked to reimagine donated garments into unusual and unexpected shapes. After ten minutes of design work, they received surprise challenges that had to be incorporated into their pieces, mimicking the rapid trend cycles of today’s fashion industry. One such challenge required that all garments have only one sleeve. In total, there were three different challenges introduced throughout the session. The clothes used were sourced from Erikshjälpen’s pile of unsellable donations, grounding the exercise in real-world textile waste. As participants adapted their designs at a fast pace, fabric scraps began to pile on the tables, visually representing the material waste generated by constant change and overproduction in the fashion world.
Once the final garments were presented and participants shared their written statements for them, explaining their design choices, we transitioned into a slower, more reflective moment: planting a cotton seed. This simple act symbolizes the time, care, and patience needed to grow the raw material that eventually becomes clothing. It stood in sharp contrast to the fast-paced challenge they had just experienced, emphasizing how easily we overlook the natural processes behind what we wear. The choice to plant cotton in Sweden, a country whose climate is unsuitable for its growth, served as a symbolic gesture. It highlights how disconnected we have become from the geographical and environmental realities of clothing production, often treating garments as if they appear out of nowhere, without limits.
This final moment of reflection encouraged participants to consider the environmental cost of fashion and rethink their relationship to trends, time, and textiles.
Recreating Fashion Awareness
Building on the experiences and insights gained throughout the workshop, I developed a final outcome designed to extend its reach and impact beyond my own facilitation. This took the form of a step-by-step manual that outlines the latest iteration of the workshop I have conducted over the past weeks. The manual includes flexible challenge options that can be adapted to suit the materials available to each facilitator. It is intended to be shared with schools and implemented by teachers or educators, allowing them to independently lead the workshop and engage their students in critical discussions around fashion, sustainability, and creative transformation.
