Decentring fashion

Participatory practices for shifting narratives and regenerating cultures

Abstract

Historically, the textile heritage of minorities has often been subjected to cultural appropriation practices (Young, 2008) or systematically undervalued and ‘othered’ as ‘non-fashion’, as such ‘sacrifice zones’ do not sit within the confines of specific fashion systems (Niessen, 2020). Designers are often ‘parachuted’ into marginalised or disadvantaged communities premised on bringing their knowledge and expertise to solve other people’s problems. However, there is growing recognition of the need to ‘decolonise’ such dominant approaches in collaborative design practice (Escobar, 2018; Mignolo, 2018; Tunstall, 2023). Different methods have been applied, sometimes in tandem, to tackle the challenges that face us as well as define new roles for the designer under different contexts, such as design activism (Fuad-Luke, 2009, 2017), design for social justice (Constanza-Chock, 2020), social entrepreneurship (Martin & Osberg, 2007) and policy design (Bason, 2014; Kimbell et al., 2023).