Introduction to week 4

Congratulations! You have made it to the final week of Fashion Values: Cultures. Over the previous three weeks we have come together to share experiences and learn from each other. You are now part of a community of changemakers that has developed new knowledge and practice.

Throughout this course, we have explored the forms that stories can take, the intentions of storytellers, the psychology behind stories, and a range of considerations and ethics for storytelling.

This week is all about pulling together the stories and storytelling skills we have been developing to help nurture our empathy skills as a first step in the design thinking process.

We will start by revisiting and reflecting on Carol Tulloch’s style-fashion-dress conceptual idea. The use of this model allows us to consider the multiplicity of cultures and clothing.

We will then revisit some of the stories we have shared throughout the course, and look for more. We will also learn about a variety of frameworks for storytelling, before focusing on one approach, using the Fashion Fictions project, led by Dr Amy Twigger Holroyd.

We will use Fashion Fictions to collate our experiences, perspectives and specialisms. We will follow a three-step process for speculative storytelling.

As you have engaged with the fashion stories of others, and are developing stories of your own, you will be able to define your own position or criteria by the end of this week. These are important practices that we can develop to enable the change that we want to see in and through fashion.

By nurturing our understanding of stories in relation to cultures, in telling stories of and through fashion, and by engaging in many diverse fashion stories, we can empathise with others and contribute to fashion systems that are inclusive, equitable and diverse, putting planetary and human health and wellbeing first.

Finally, we will reflect on our learning through the course and consider how to take this forward in our fashion practices.

So be prepared to flex your creativity! Let’s get started.