Systemic Social Change

Systemic Social Change explores society as an aggregate of communities and ecologies deeply impacted by how we relate to fashion today, in terms of ideation, production, consumption and politics. The main focus is to promote systemic changes in fashion by promoting collective action and design activism, critically addressing issues close to the fashion system, such as social justice, decolonising design, gender pluralism, societal empowerment, human rights, consumer behaviour, etc.

This approach challenges mindsets to promote equality, justice and sustainability in fashion. Students will be requested to develop critical thinking and adopt a strategic and systemic approach to design, to face the current social challenges in fashion and to identify stakeholders and communities to be involved in the different stages of the change process. Moreover, students are encouraged to focus on design activism methods, which they will use throughout their design process. With this it is expected that students achieve innovative, scalable and sustainable design processes for a socially responsible fashion system. It is recommended that they explore technology in a creative and catalyst manner as well as explore the resourcefulness of research informed design. The acquired knowledge will allow students to operate within their chosen framework: a path among public entities, companies, communities and/or individuals.