Overview

Fashion and economy are deeply intertwined through everyday actions, behaviours and business models. On this course from London College of Fashion's Centre for Sustainable Fashion, you'll explore who the economy serves and use design thinking to imagine how fashion can change a global economic system that's broken. You'll consider the size and scale of fashion in economic terms. Who depends on it, who benefits from it, and who is left outside. You will begin to understand how the current economic system does not work for people and nature. Through that understanding you will develop ideas for shaping fashion practices that enable alternative fashion economies. On this course we approach economics through design thinking - asking how fashion economies can nurture wellbeing for people and nature. This isn't a conventional economics course that teaches you how an economy works. It won't provide a comprehensive economic analysis of fashion and sustainability. The purpose of this course is to encourage you to think about how wellbeing can be a driving force for fashion economies. You'll be set a design challenge: to develop a fashion practice, product, or system that enables a different kind of economic model. Drawing on frameworks and examples from practitioners pioneering new approaches, you'll leave with a concrete idea that puts people and nature first. You'll join a community of fashion and sustainability thinkers and doers with the vision, skills, and commitment to radically transform how fashion operates within the economy. This course is for fashion practitioners, students, and sustainability advocates who want to go beyond awareness and start shaping what comes next. No economics background is required — just curiosity about why the current system isn't working, and a determination to help change it. This course is led by fashion and sustainability experts from Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion, drawing on knowledge from world-leading researchers and practitioners working at the forefront of economic transformation in fashion.

Syllabus

Module 1: Fashion & Economy

Learners understand in broad terms the relationship between economics, fashion, people and nature.

Module 2: Fashion's Systems 1: Value, Use, Access, Exchange and Regulation

Learners understand that economies are made up of different components and systems.

Module 3: Fashion's Systems 2: Work, Making, and Business Models

Learners think creatively about how economies work and consider alternative approaches in and through fashion that nurture wellbeing for people and nature.

Module 4: How Will Fashion Economies Nurture Wellbeing for People and Nature?

Learners use design thinking to develop, prototype, evaluate and communicate a fashion economic practice that nurtures wellbeing for people and nature.