V&A Talk Program: Future Education: Embodying Positive Culture and Environmental Impact

This session explores how education and innovation can amplify the role of fashion in shaping a more responsible and inclusive future.

This session explores how education and innovation can amplify the role of fashion in shaping a more responsible and inclusive future. By weaving sustainability, cultural understanding, and social consciousness into the fabric of fashion education, we can equip the next generation with the knowledge and values needed to drive meaningful change.

Moderator:

Dal Chodha, Editor

London-based writer and consultant Dal Chodha is Editor-in-chief ofArchivist Addendum – a publishing project that explores the gap between fashion editorial and academe. He is aContributing Editor atWallpaper*and PathwayLeader of the BA Fashion Communication: Image& Promotion course at Central Saint Martins. This book was first released in 2020 and a second,You gotta keep your head straight about clothes, was published by Tender books in 2023.

Panelists:

Fabio Piras, MA Fashion Course Leader, Central Saint Martins

Italian-born Fabio studied Fashion Design at Central Saint Martins. He launched his label at London Fashion Week (1994–2001) and built a successful career in creative direction and consultancy across Europe and Asia. In 2014, Fabio became Course Director of CSM’s MA Fashion.

Else Skjold, Associate Professor, Ph.d. in design and sustainability, The Royal Danish Academy, Institute of Design, Products & Materials

Else Skjold is founder of the MA Fashion, Clothing & Textiles; New Landscapes for Change and Head of Klothing – Center forApparel, Textiles & Ecology Research at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen. She is also work stream leader for textiles in the national Danish partnership for circular economy of plastics and textiles, TRACE (trace.dk). In her research, she is typically focusing on ways that textile knowledge - and heritage might inform and stimulate sustainability work.

Orsola de Castro, Creative Director, Activist, Author, Estethica

Orsola de Castro is an opinion leader in sustainable fashion, a mentor, curator and author. Her award winning brand From Somewhere (1997-2014) was pioneering in the field of upcycling and sold in some of the world’s best boutiques - collaborations include collections for Topshop and Speedo. In 2006 she started Estethica, the highly acclaimed Sustainable Fashion Showcase at London Fashion Week, and in 2013 she co-founded Fashion Revolution, now the world’s largest fashion activism movement, with teams in over 80 countries. Her first book, Loved Clothes Last was published by Penguin life in 2021 and translated into Italian (Corbaccio Editori) French (Edition Marabou) and German (Doerlemann Verlag).

Zowie Broach, Head of Programme, Royal College of Art

Zowie Broach as an educator, has radically changed the paradigm of what it means today, to consider how we might design, act and think about Fashion. Zowie previously co-founded the label Boudicca, who were the first independent British Label to show during Couture Paris, as well as exhibiting at Chicago Arts Institute and theTel Aviv Museum; whilst Boudicca was also recently part of the Design Museum in London 'REBEL: 30 years of London Fashion ". Their Invisible City collection AW04 is part of the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Today, Zowie is a principle-investigator about whether machine intelligence can support and relate to the manual intelligence of Haute Couture which relates deeply to the consultation she was part of for Cartier. Zowie supports a new disruption to the industry from graduates across high luxury to research, questioning and impacting a fashion future. Her relation to protest at the end of the century now finds a return to similar areas where research looks to connecting worlds crossing the digital territories and the planet Earth we call home. Zowie Broach has been voted into the top 500 Fashion Leaders, Business of FASHION for the last 8 years. Zowie Broach is the recipient of the prestigious 2024 Sir Mischa Black award for Innovation in Design Education. This is the first time honouring fashion education in its history.