A presentation of the work of students at UCA Rochester documenting their experience of fashion and experimental textiles within the studio via multidisciplinary, issue based work exploring cross-cultural narratives.

As a practising textile artist and University Lecturer specialising in fashion design, I strive to instill a sense of ‘critical adventure’ in fashion and textile students. Encouraging them to question their own understanding, break down perceptions, to re-invent and deconstruct stereotypes and move away from well-worn euro-centric perspectives. My illustrated talk will focus on the students’ creative experience through a series of documented workshops and projects designed to enhance their knowledge of and at the same time question the meta-narrative of ‘Global Fashion’. In short, we see how a group of students begin to identify and contest more and less visible boundaries that permeate fashion systems around the world.

Contextual exploration includes the ground-breaking work of contemporary African and Asian designers such as Manish Arora, Rei Kawakubo, Junya Watanabe and Yohji Yamamoto. With an emphasis on more dynamic ways of exploring fashion design: enveloping the body through draping, wrapping, exploring asymmetry and multiples as well as considering 'clothing' in a more abstract sense. Students study the Japanese aesthetic concepts of 'Ma' exploring the space/gap between the body and clothes, and of 'Wabi Sabi' the acceptance of transience and the innate beauty of imperfection as a conceptual springboard for design and construction.

As students' address ecological concerns, migration, social and gender issues, etc., their design experiments move beyond eurocentric/ethnocentric discourses within fashion to explore dynamic cultural hybrids and weave an alternative future. Outcomes become more politically, socially and ethically engaged through questioning and re-framing issues and perspectives deemed 'global'.