Fashion Futures x Fashion Revolution USA Upcycling Workshop

At what point does material cross the threshold to waste?

The purpose of this workshop is for fashion design students to reconsider what they view, and what they have been taught to view, as waste.

Prior to the event, we ask that attendees collect fabric scraps, thread bits, and other “waste” material from their projects to bring to the workshop.

This event is an opportunity for fashion students to reevaluate their approach to waste in the fashion design process and to share and discover sustainable and ethical fashion resources that are often not discussed in academic fashion programs. For systemic change in the fashion industry, consumers, policymakers, and designers each have a key role to play. Fashion students are the future of the fashion industry, yet in formal fashion education, they are not uniformly taught to question the current fashion system of exploitation and extraction that perpetuates its colonial and capitalistic roots.

For the first part of this workshop, attendees will use their collected “waste” material to learn new up-cycling techniques. The workshop will also explore natural solvent image transfer. The second half will be for community resource sharing, including an introduction to the Fashion Futures platform: A one-stop digital hub for sustainable fashion education and community connection.

This event is free, but we will be collecting donations to support the work we do at Fashion Revolution USA. Fashion Revolution USA is just one of the seventy country offices for Fashion Revolution. We are the world’s largest fashion activism movement, mobilising citizens, brands and policymakers through research, education and advocacy.

Please bring these materials if you have them (we will be providing materials as well):

1. Thread/scraps with materials you have been collecting, and any other scraps you may have
2. A garment to up-cycle. We will provide a few extras
3. A list of sustainable/systems-based fashion resources that you have found in your research (can be books, films, podcasts, academic papers, articles, etc.)
4. Scissors or tweezers (if you have them)
5. Iron/heat-disappearing fabric pen (if you have one)
6. Your Juki Plainstitch sewing materials.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Parsons the New School for Design, 63 5th Avenue, New York, United States

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