The Radical Fashion Learning Circle: RELAUNCH

Welcome to the Radical Fashion Learning Circle, as part of The Alternative Fashion School!

We gather together once a month, every first Wednesday of the month. The theme for this month's gathering is:

'what is fashion for...?'

The idea of the Learning circle is that we can collectively address the problems of fashion, but in order to do that we must:

1) Build knowledge and understanding about how the current fashion system is limiting us.

2) Collectively imagine alternative systems!

The Learning Circle is less about practical making skills, and more about building new ways of understanding, imagining and communicating what fashion is, and what fashion could be. We will be doing this over a drink and a biscuit, on a monthly basis. You don't need any special skills or knowledge to take part- all you need is curiosity, imagination, and the desire to gather and learn with others.

Each month we will consider a different question which will usually start with the phrase:

'what if...?'

We have made a padlet which shows the questions we will discuss each month, and the padlet will be populated by us with resources that folks can engage with, related to the monthly topics. These might be books, articles, youtube videos, social media content, podcasts, anything that might give us some food for thought. Anyone in the community can add to the padlet- if you see anything interesting, please share it!

When we meet together, we will have a small range of art materials available, including paper, old magazines, scissors, glue, pens and pencils, and there will be an invitation to use these however you like, in response to our conversations. We would like to make some sort of collective record of our discussions, which could be a mind map, a poster or a paper zine, which we can use to share with other people who aren't able to attend. This is a totally optional activity, but hopefully it will be fun!

Inportant Information about the event:

The Radical Fashion Learning Circle is aimed at ages 16+ but younger people are welcome to attend, although under-18s must be accompanied by an adult.

What does it cost?

There is a suggested minimum donation to take part in these sessions each month, based on the level of your financial privilege.

We use the Green Bottle sliding scale as a measure of financial privilege. We suggest you budget for around £5 if if your financial situation is best described by the full bottle, and for around £3 if your financial circumstances are best described by the half-full bottle.

Any donations you make over and above covering venue hire and refreshments go straight into supporting our work, including things like buying materials and equipment, and subsidising activities for those who cannot afford to access them, so if you are in a position to and would liek to give more, all donations and support are gratefully received.

If you are unwaged, or low-waged (ie. your green bottle is nearly empty), meaning a donation is not possible for you, you are welcome to attend the learning circle for free, but we would encourage you to think about how you could donate an hour of your time per month to support the work of We Wear The Trousers, if this is possible for you.

You can donate by via eventbrite by selecting the 'donation' option, which will allow you to choose how much to donate. You can also donate by cash or card on the night- Select the 'I prefer to donate in person' option and your ticket will appear as free on Eventbrite.

We do ask that if you book without paying but find you need to cancel, that you cancel with 48 hours notice. This allows us to make the decision about whether to cancel the event if we don't have enough people booked on to cover the venue costs. If you cancel with less than 48 hours notice, we ask you to consider still making your donation, if you are able to do so.

What to bring with you:

We are able to make hot or cold drinks at the venue, so do please bring a reusable cup or bottle with you if you would like to make a drink.

You are very welcome to bring food or snacks with you; lots of us eat a sandwich or thermos with soup to eat at about 6pm as for those coming straight from work, it gets a bit late to eat tea when we finish at 8.30pm!

This is NOT a book club, but this book by Tansy Hoskins comes up in a lot of our resource lists, and the chapters in the book handily cover lots of different important topics that we will likely want to discuss over the next year! Norfolk Libraries has five copies.

The book is also available on audio book if you like listening to things! if reading books isn't your thing, no one will expect you to read this or any other book, and you will still be able to join in with all the discussions, regardless :-)

The Venue:

The Stage is on the west side of St Augustine’s Street, near the turning into Sussex Street. There are cycle racks at either end of St Augustine’s Street and in Sussex Street and the venue is close to bus links and parking at Anglia Square.

The venue has a wheelchair accessible toilet but this is not a changing places toilet, and requires the user to be able to transfer themselves onto the toilet without assistance. There is step-free access from the back of the building, accessible via Sussex Street. Drop-off is possible at the back of the building.

If you have any questions about accessibility, please get in touch with us by email at wewearthetrousers (at) gmail.com or message us via social media.

More about the Radical Fashion Learning Circle:

We could think of this as 'NOT a book club': some of us will be reading books, but we appreciate not everyone has the capacity or capability to read a whole book each month, so we will ensure there is a range of resources each month for people to engage with, including podcasts, articles, youtube videos, documentaries, social media creators, etc. The Learning Circle will also be a space for people to share the knowledge and wisdom we already have, or to simply listen to others and learn. We’ll discuss a different question each time we meet, and these will be visible in the Padlet.

Fashion Consciousness-raising:

We have been inspired in the creation of the learning circle by the radical feminist consciousness-raising groups of the 1960s/70s.

However, we do want it to be very clear that although we are inspired by the format of these groups, we recognise that second-wave feminism of the 60s,70s and 80s tended to centre the experiences of cis, white women.

The Learning Circle is an intersectional feminist space, and all folk are welcome, regardless of identity. We have a zero-tolerence policy on any kind of hate speech or behaviour . We recognise that the harms produced by the dominant fashion system do not harm us all to the same extent, and we will work to co-create a just and equitable space during these meetings.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Stage, 52 St Augustines St, Norwich, United Kingdom