Fashion is a great teacher – The fashion education podcast

In this episode you meet Sandra Niessen – anthropologist and activist, who's repeatedly called out both the global western fashion industry for its imperialism and fashion studies for its biases and othering – using her decades of field work among the Batak in Indonesia, to ground her increasingly direct critique. Sandra Niessen recently published a manifesto for Degrowth, which urges a process of De-Fashion. For The Digital Multilogue on Fashion Education 2023, we've taken up this term for an exploration of De-Fashioning education, a critical thinking and making conference that wants to champion different fashion educational cultures and explore how to unmake global western fashion education, which has co-opted a fashion system in which so much is wrong, so many are left out, and so few profit – to adapt Halberstan. Fashion is a great teacher talks to her about becoming an activist instructor, and getting angrier with age, the power of connecting the potential and limits of anthropology, addressing the Colonialism in one’s own work and freeing ourselves from the shackles of limitations to our imagination.Interview: Renate Stauss Editorial assistant: Chantz NorrisSound editor: Moritz BaillyMusic by: Johannes von WeizsäckerGraphic by: Studio Regular

In this episode you meet Rahemur Rahman, artist, designer, filmmaker, and Joint First Year Leader on the BA Fashion at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. He has a strong commitment to social knowledge and community engagement, using his platform to give voice to underrepresented communities. He sees himself as a conduit of hope between grassroots and CEOs. He wants to decolonize craftsmanship and show the whole world what Bangladesh can do. Rahemur radiates empathy and urgency at once, and embodies what Paolo Freire called an education for hope. Fashion is a great teacher talks to him about unlearning taboos and eliminating hurdles, about saving people through care and education, and creating a better world though teaching better, about almost becoming a civil servant instead … and the ambiguity of teaching students for an industry that he thinks is a complete pile of crap.Interview: Renate StaussAudio editing by: Moritz BaillyMusic by: Johannes von Weizsäcker Graphic by: Studio Regular

In this special edition you will listen to a choir of voices from the last Digital Multilogue on Fashion Education, organized by Renate Stauss & Franziska Schreiber, the conference that asked: What kinds of fashion education are needed NOW? In October 2021, the Multilogue brought together 450 participants from 52 countries. Through a wealth of papers and workshops, provocations and conversations, a student think tank and exhibition, and a live podcasting booth it aimed to inspire mutual learning, collaborative research and shared action – fashion educations for NOW. This special edition of Fashion is a great teacher brings you a lasting multilogue, a global choir of thoughts, ideas and solutions on what it means to learn and teach fashion at this collective moment, what moves people right now and what fashion education has done and could doEpisode co-editor: Marteena MendelssohnSound editor: Moritz BaillyMusic by: Johannes von WeizsäckerGraphic by: Studio Regular

Fashion is a great teacher because it provides a fantastic lens to learn about the world and its people, about history, politics and culture. Join Renate Stauss and Franziska Schreiber, professors of fashion theory and fashion design in Paris and Berlin to discover the most inspiring voices in fashion education, their take on the how and why of learning and teaching fashion, their doubts and hopes, their lessons from fashion.

In this episode you meet Tanveer Ahmed, senior lecturer in Fashion and Race at Central Saint Martins College, University of the Arts London. She is also a PhD candidate at The Open University, to investigate how to develop ways to teach anti-racist and non-capitalist forms of fashion design. Fashion is a great teacher talks to her about: education as a space for freedom and raising critical consciousness, about brutal educational experiences, about wanting to teach differently and a decolonial framework of love to reform fashion education.Interview: Renate StaussAudio editor: Moritz BaillyMusic by: Johannes von WeizsäckerGraphic by: Studio Regular

In this episode you meet Elke Gaugele – a highly political cultural anthropologist, writer, and curator, she is professor for Fashion and Styles at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and head of the Austrian Center for Fashion Research (ACfFR). Fashion is a great teacher talks to her about: intellectual activism, the impact of teaching fashion teachers, how making her own clothes determined her scholarship, and not wanting to reinvent herself as a Marxist.Audio editing & mixing by: Moritz BaillyMusic by: Johannes von WeizsäckerGraphic by: Studio Regular

In this episode you meet Christina Moon, Professor of Fashion Studies at Parsons School of Design in New York, an anthropologist who works on social ties and cultural encounters between design worlds and manufacturing landscapes across Asia and the Americas. Fashion is a great teacher talks to her about: cultivating community and collective wisdom, making culture in a 90-minute class, not holding on to one view, her learnings from teaching a baseball team.Audio editing & mixing: Moritz BaillyMusic by: Johannes von WeizsäckerGraphic by: Studio Regular

In this episode you meet Alistair O’Neill, writer, curator and professor of Fashion History and Theory at Central Saint Martins in London. His research concerns the role of material and making, and the representation of contemporary fashion culture. He fosters practice-led theory teaching and a mutually beneficial culture between education, curation and industry. Fashion is a great teacher talks to him about: the importance of understanding fashion through its making, about aptitude and appetite, and five pieces of stapled A4 paper as the perfect object to explain sustainable fashion to the public. Interview: Renate StaussAudio editing & mixing: Moritz BaillyMusic by: Johannes von WeizsäckerGraphic by: Studio Regular

In this episode you meet Zowie Broach, one half of the legendary label B O U D I CC A and the Head of Fashion at the Royal College of Art in London. She has fostered a highly individualized approach to teaching fashion, fusing fashion and science, philosophy and poetry, challenging existing processes and products. Fashion is a great teacher talks to her about education as an experimental place not bullied by the industry, feeling alive through teaching, fashion as a drug and a harsh teacher, and not knowing how to teach right now. Interview: Renate Stauss Audio editing & mixing: Moritz BaillyMusic by: Johannes von WeizsäckerGraphic by: Studio Regular

In this episode you meet Valerie Steele. She is the director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. She is also the founder and editor in chief of the Fashion Theory journal. As author, curator, editor, and educator Valerie Steele has been instrumental in creating the modern field of fashion studies and impacted its education lastingly. Fashion is a great teacher talks to Valerie Steele about finding her fascination for fashion in her mother’s evening dresses, teaching fashion in order to spend her life studying fashion and students as friends and vampires. Audio editing & mixing: Moritz BaillyMusic by: Johannes von WeizsäckerGraphic by: Studio Regular

In this episode you meet Dilys Williams. She has been described as ‘The Rockstar of sustainable fashion education’. Dilys Williams is the founder and Director of The Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion. Fashion is a great teacher talks to her about her greatest fashion teachers, pioneering fashion education for sustainability and her grandmother’s sewing kit. Interview: Renate Stauss. Audio editing & mixing: Moritz BaillyMusic by: Johannes von WeizsäckerGraphic by: Studio Regular