Fashion Fictions

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Fashion Fictions is a sustainable fashion project that brings people together to imagine, explore and enact fictional parallel worlds in which people live differently with their clothes. Founded in 2020 by Dr Amy Twigger Holroyd, Associate Professor of Fashion and Sustainability at Nottingham School of Art & Design at NTU, the project has already involved thousands of people, all over the world. You can find out more here. 

Working in collaboration with NTU, Ignite!, and Bulwell Arts Festival, 280 children from Snape Wood Primary School, Hempshill Hall Primary School, Rufford Primary School, Our Lady of Perpetual Succour Academy, Crabtree Farm Primary School, and Cantrell Primary School, worked on the first children’s iteration of Fashion Fictions to develop alternative worlds in which the way we make, buy, use and dispose of clothing is better for people and our planet. 

The worlds and artwork were collaboratively developed and created in the schools through exploring sustainable fashion, sharing ideas of how we can improve our relationship with our clothes, and working with fantastic creative practitioners to produce enactments and prototypes. We were delighted to share these worlds at the Bulwell Arts Festival this year from 8th-13th July, launched with a Celebration Day where all six of the schools attended Bulwell Riverside to showcase and present their work. 

Featured work: 

The Signature Rainbow - created by Year 4 children from Our Lady’s of Perpetual Succor Academy who worked with artist Mary Broddle. 

Animal Skirt and Emotions Jumper - created by Year 4 children from Rufford Primary School who worked with artist Rachel Scanlon. 

The Drying Tree - created by Year 5 children from Hempshill Hall Primary School who worked with artist Jane Stockley. 

Emotion Patchwork - created by Year 5 children from Cantrell Primary School who worked with artist Charlotte Land 

Natural Dying Experiments - created by Year 6 children from Crabtree Farm Primary School who worked with artist Elaine Winter. 

The Oak Class Cloak - created by Year 6 children from Snape Wood Primary School who worked with artist Diane Greenhough.

Words by Catriona Kelly, Ignite! Futures