Post Growth Fashion Agency: Amazing updates
Newsletter #3 - stellar speakers for 2025 webinars, access to a rocking publication, and new team members
Has anyone noticed November fly by? It’s been a busy period at the Post Growth Fashion Agency, and I am happy to share a few exciting updates, about the past and the future.
New speakers for the Post Growth (?) Fashion Futures webinar series: Kate Fletcher, Dilys Williams and Hakan Karaosman
HOT HOT HOT off the press - we have the first three speakers confirmed for 2025 for the Post Growth (?) Fashion Futures webinar series: Kate Fletcher, Dilys Williams and Hakan Karaosman will be joining the conversation, following the December conversation with Ingun Klepp and Tone Tobiasson.
! There is a cap for 100 people to attend each webinar, and our Substack followers get the sign up details first:) As usual, the webinars will be free to attend and later recordings will be available to paid subscribers of this Substack. Here are the past recordings with Claudia Henninger and Kirsi Niinimaki.
To attend, RSVP through the associated links below to get a calendar invite.
13-DEC-2024 Prof. Ingun Klepp, Professor at the National Institute for Consumer Research, and Tone Tobiasson, Author and journalist, from Oslo, Norway
One of the most passionate and influential tandems in the textile research / policy space, with a long track record of pioneering research projects that changed our understanding of the use phase of garments, post consumer textile flows and plastification of fashion.
16-JAN-2025 Prof. Kate Fletcher, Professor at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK and Oslo Metropolitan University in Norway
Kate Fletcher is one of the most renown sustainable fashion researchers. Her work, including that on systems change, post-growth fashion, fashion localism, decentring durability, Earth Logic and nature relations both defines and challenges the field of fashion, textiles and sustainability. She has written and/or edited 13 books available in eight languages, and in 2022 she was identified by author Margaret Atwood as a visionary. Kate is a co-founder of the Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion. Her most recent work is about design, clothing and nature.
06-FEB-2025 Prof. Dilys Williams, Director of Centre for Sustainable Fashion, University of the Arts London
Professor Dilys Williams is founder and Director of Centre for Sustainable Fashion, a University of the Arts London Research Centre, based at London College of Fashion, exploring fashion as sustainability in action with researchers and businesses across the world. Dilys is also chair of UAL’s Social Purpose Advisory Group, re-purposing the university in the context of our times.
14-MAR-2025 Dr. Hakan Karaosman, Associate Professor, Cardiff University
Dr. Hakan Karaosman is an internationally experienced and award-winning scientific researcher focusing on fashion supply chains at the nexus of climate change and social justice. He is Associate Professor at Cardiff Business School, Chief Scientist at FReSCH (Fashion's Responsible Supply Chain Hub, an UN-recognised and EU-awarded action research project hosted by University College Dublin and Cardiff University), Visiting Scholar at University College Dublin and Politecnico di Milano and Chair of Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion (UCRF).
Join us to learn more about ongoing research and how it could be translated into policies and action!
A new publication in Nature Cities
A new article came out in a prestigious academic journal, Nature Cities (a Nature Portfolio journal), written by twelve co-authors from the International research network on Sustainable Fashion Consumption.
This article takes an unusual analytical lens of cities to explore how the fashion system could be transformed towards sustainability rails. While exploring how urban systems are organised to siphone textiles in and out of cities, we found many opportunities for city governments to develop circular sufficiency-oriented local textile ecosystems. I wrote a detailed post on such policies and possibilities for cities here.
For those of you who don’t have academic access, here’s a read-only access link - please do not share on social media: https://rdcu.be/dXP81
Thanks to my two proactive co-authors, Yassie Samie and Irene Maldini, our research was also featured in The Conversation.
Geneva Futures Talks
A joint initiative by the University of Geneva and a number of prominent UN agencies and other international organisations, Geneva Future Talks - fourth semi-formal gathering - were hosted by the United Nations Office for Disaster and Risk Reduction this week. I was there representing Post Growth Fashion Agency.
The main topic was how to make cities more resilient in the future. We went through a great future scenario building exercise, facilitated by the UN Futures Lab team. And during the discussion that followed, I raised the topic of loneliness, lack of connection in the modern world - and linked it to wellbeing and building local communities around the topics of common interest.
Like fashion.
If we meet in person, know and “play” with others, we can build a basis for trust and stronger, more resilient groups locally.
Creating local centers and activities to unite people around upcylcing and repair, sewing and textile art, fashion and styling - these are all the simple steps cities and local organizations could take to build and strengthen their circular ecosystems AND their communities of interest.
A great example is Let’z ReFashion center in Luxembourg - check them out, I wrote the initial concept note but the local actors shaped it into the beautiful space it is today.
New team members
Since launching the Post Growth Fashion Agency in September, I have received a dozen emails from talented people who wanted to contribute. We do not have long-term funding for the moment so, unfortunately, there is no hiring possible at the moment. However, there are two fantastic volunteers who have joined the team to assist on various projects. Meet Preston Thatcher and Atiya Hyder and read more about their background stories and contributions on our ABOUT page.
There were other cool events that took place in October-November.
NEDAP Retail invited Post Growth Fashion Agency to speak at an event in Milan about the upcoming Digital Product Passport regulations. While we had some big brand names in the audience, we could build a really nice rapport, discussing the very reasons that are underpinning this new transparency tool in Europe.
The Circular Saffari, organized by the Impact Hub Geneva and led by the ever energetic Felix Staehli, which took participants across the key sustainable fashion destinations in Geneva. On behalf of the Post Growth Fashion Agency, I was happy to join the walk as an expert and answer participants’ questions along the way.
The first ever slow fashion salon in Geneva, the GARDEROBES - this event deserves a separate post, which I will write in due time. I was absolutely delighted to be on the jury for a kids competition for art made out of used textiles. The resulting art pieces were fabulous.
To follow the work of the Post Growth Fashion Agency and not to miss anything, subscribe to this Substack channel. If you want to have access to the premium content, including all the webinar recordings and some more advanced analytical pieces, join us as a paid subscriber.