Organise an activity

Familiarise yourself with Fashion Fictions

The first step is to familiarise yourself with the Fashion Fictions project, ‘rules’ and terminology.

We recommend that you:

• read the About page, particularly noting what happens at Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3
• read the Rules section of the Stage 1: Contribute guide to learn about the parameters for speculative ideas explored in the project
• browse the repository of Worlds (generated via Stage 1 activities) to gain an idea of the fictions that people have come up with, and the way that they are presented on the website
• browse the Explorations of those Worlds (generated via Stage 2 activities) to gain an understanding of how worlds might be prototyped, and the way that they are presented on the website.
• browse the Enactments (Stage 3 activities) to gain an understanding of the opportunities for bringing Worlds to life.
• watch ‘Fashion Fictions: learning to challenge the status quo‘, a presentation at The Future of International Fashion Design Education, Istituto Marangoni London, 29 September 2022 (starts around 1 hour in).

If you want to learn more about the project, please check out the videos and papers in the final section of the About page. We also have a recording of our Education Forum event in September 2021, where people who have facilitated Fashion Fictions projects discussed their experiences. Please email Amy if you’d like to watch the recording.

Get in touch

Please email Amy with some details of what you’re hoping to do, including how many people will participate – we’re keen to hear about all affiliated Fashion Fictions activities, whether large or small.

Planning

You will need to plan and deliver the activity, drawing on the Fashion Fictions framework, in a way that suits your context. If you are an educator, you will of course devise the workshop or project to fit into your curriculum, timetable, learning outcomes, student needs and so on. Please note that we don’t have the capacity to get involved in your activity directly but we can offer support via the Fashion Fictions Organisers Network.

If you plan to submit the work generated to the project, we recommend that you take a careful look at the appropriate submission form (see below) before planning your activity in detail, so you can guide the participants to generate information in the appropriate format.

Stage 1

For Stage 1 activities (writing 100-word outlines of fictional Worlds), you may wish to use the online Contribute: Stage 1 guide and the workshop plan and slides that can be downloaded from the same page.

These examples of Stage 1 Worlds can be shared to demonstrate the ideal format of the text (e.g. ‘In World X, …’ rather than ‘In our fictional world, …’).

We will be pleased to receive your completed fictions, which can be submitted via the online Stage 1 submission form and will then be added to the repository of Worlds. Please let Amy know in advance if your group will generate more then 20 fictions, as we have limited capacity for processing submissions.

Stage 2

For Stage 2 activities (creating visual or material prototypes to represent life in one of the fictional Worlds), you may wish to use the online Contribute: Stage 2 guide and the workshop plans and slides that can be downloaded from the same page.

These examples of Stage 2 Explorations can be shared to demonstrate the ideal format of the explanatory text (e.g. ‘Featured here is an item from World X, …’ rather than ‘As our prototype, we created …’).

When your project is complete we encourage you to submit the outcomes to the project, as up to five hi-res jpegs and explanatory text.

There are two submission forms:

• The Stage 2 submission form should be used for Stage 2-only projects (which build on existing Worlds)
• The combined Stage 1 and Stage 2 submission form should be used if your groups are undertaking a joint Stage 1/Stage 2 project (i.e. inventing their own World and describing it in a 100-word outline, and then creating a prototype to represent life in that World).

Stage 2 outcomes will be published to the Explorations section of the site. Please get in touch with Amy in advance if your group will generate more than ten Stage 2 outcomes, as we have limited capacity for processing submissions.

Stage 3

For Stage 3 activities, please see the ‘recipes’ on the Enactments page. If you would like to discuss your ideas about running a Stage 3 activity, please get in touch with Amy for a chat.

Creative Commons licences

Please note that the creators of all Stage 1 submissions and any Stage 2/3 submissions that are to be included in the project’s research must apply a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence to their submission, in keeping with the open and collaborative nature of the project. This licence does not restrict the creators’ ability to publish and share their own work, but allows others to build upon it, with appropriate credit.

Report your activity

When you have completed your activity, it would help us very much if you could report it to us using the report an activity form.

Your report helps us to understand the impact of the project and relay news of this impact to our funders. It also helps us to understand what you have done, inspire others to get involved and develop the support we can offer.