www.forumforthefuture.org
Fashion Futures is a call for a sustainable fashion industry. It’s designed to help organisations in all sectors take action which will safeguard their future, protect our environment and improve the lives of their customers, workers and suppliers around the world.
Four vivid scenarios explore how climate change, resource shortages, population growth and other factors will shape the world of 2025 and the future of the fashion industry within it. They are designed as a tool to challenge companies’ strategies, inspire them with new opportunities and help them plan for the future. We’ve brought them to life in four animations.
The global fashion industry generates over a trillion dollars a year. So what we wear - and how it's made and sold - can have a huge positive impact on our society and environment. The report, produced by Forum for the Future and Levi Strauss & Co., describes how fashion companies can be successful by becoming sustainable.
“For the fashion industry to be sustainable economically, it must be sustainable socially and environmentally too. These provocative scenarios challenge all of us to look beyond the short term and use our collective power to work to create the kind of positive world we’d like to see in 2025.” - John Anderson, president and chief executive officer of Levi Strauss & Co.
- How will the industry react to climate change impacts, shortages of cotton and other raw materials?
- How could the fashion workforce be affected by shifting supply chains and technological development?
- How might technology influence fashion and change the way it is produced and sold?
- How will people care for their clothes in a future of water shortages and high energy prices?
- How could reuse and remanufacturing of clothing develop as a response to higher demand and prices?
We’ve created resources to allow these organisations to make use of in workshops and course work. Download them here.
The scenarios can also be used to help students understand the challenges of the future and come up with ideas for sustainable products and services. In 2009, we piloted a Fashion Futures module with students from the London College of Fashion’s MA Fashion and the Environment. Find out more.
The scenarios are full of vivid details: clothes grown in vats, 3-D body scanners and waterless washing machines. Much of this has a basis in fact. You can find out more here.
"Companies need to be seeding innovation and new ideas now in order to thrive in a resource constrained world. We need thought-provoking research like Fashion Futures to help us collaborate and advocate for the right future solutions around the most important issues on sustainability," - Hannah Jones, Vice President, Sustainable Business and Innovation, Nike Inc.
Get in touch
Contact us if you would like us to help you run a workshop session at your company or college, or if you would like us to speak at an event you are holding. Or just to have a chat about the project and how it applies to your business.
Fiona Bennie, +44 (0)20 7324 3626, f.bennie@forumforthefuture.org
Vicky Murray, +44 (0)20 7324 3618, v.murray@forumforthefuture.org
Fashion Futures oulines the critical factors that are likely to shape the future of the fashion world. It presents vivid scenarios for the global fashion industry in 2025, implications derived from the scenarios, and what the industry can do about them now. It also includes practical ways that companies from all parts of the industry can use the scenarios.
Fashion Futures animations
Fashion Futures presents four vivid scenarios exploring how climate change, resource shortages, population growth and other factors will shape the world of 2025 and the future of the fashion industry within it. They have been brought to life in animations created by Dom del Torto at Big Animal Studio. View the full report for more detail on each scenario.
Slow is Beautiful
Slow is Beautiful presents a world of political collaboration and global trade. ‘Slow fashion’ is in vogue, and high street brands compete on sustainability credentials. Climate change refugees have introduced new fashion influences. People own fewer, but higher quality clothes. ‘Vintage’ second-hand clothes are also popular and bought and sold online. People also wear ‘smart’ clothes, which monitor their health and wellbeing. Japan specialises in remanufacturing the world’s used garments.
View animation
Slow is Beautiful
Slow is Beautiful presents a world of political collaboration and global trade. ‘Slow fashion’ is in vogue, and high street brands compete on sustainability credentials. Climate change refugees have introduced new fashion influences. People own fewer, but higher quality clothes. ‘Vintage’ second-hand clothes are also popular and bought and sold online. People also wear ‘smart’ clothes, which monitor their health and wellbeing. Japan specialises in remanufacturing the world’s used garments.
View animation
Community Couture
In Community Couture, self-sufficient communities are thriving in a world struggling to cope with the impacts of climate change and resource shortages. Only the rich can afford new clothing, and factories that still make clothes from raw materials need protection from armed gangs. People rent garments from clothing libraries or make their own in community recycling centres. Second-hand clothing is a valuable resource and nothing is thrown away.
View animation
View animation
Techno-Chic
The prosperous world of Techno-Chic has benefited from an early switch to a low-carbon economy and huge technological investment. 3-D body scanners allow people to ’try on’ clothes in virtual mirrors. Modular clothing, produced by machines in China, is customised in store to individual taste. The latest craze is ‘chameleon’ clothing, a military spin-off, offering a blank canvas which can change colour and style, programmed to mimic the celeb of the moment. Clothes are designed to biodegrade or be reused.
View animation
View animation
Patchwork Planet
In Patchwork Planet, the world has fragmented into competing blocs with rapidly changing fashions inspired by religious and cultural ideals. Western clothes are banned in much of the Middle East. Resource shortages have driven innovation: garments can be ‘grown’ from bacterial cellulose and edible clothing is a craze in Europe. Clothes are designed to be zipped, tucked and strapped to create many different looks, and post-purchase services allow owners to update them in line with the latest local trend.
View animation
View animation
Fashion Futures workshop materials
Fashion Futures is designed to help companies throughout the global fashion industry take the actions that will safeguard their future, protect our environment and improve the lives of their customers, workers and suppliers around the world.
The scenarios are designed as a tool to help organisations road-test their existing ideas, identify new opportunities and plan for the future. By picturing how their organisation would respond to the world of each scenario, they can develop resilient strategies, products and services which can adapt to whatever the future may bring.
"Fashion Futures makes an important contribution to the longer-term sustainability of clothing production. By providing four provocative scenarios of future worlds in 2025, Fashion Futures can help companies develop responses to key social and environmental challenges." - Mike Barry, Head of Sustainable Business, Marks & Spencer
We want to make it easy for organisations worldwide to make use of the Fashion Futures scenarios and we have created a range of workshop materials which are freely available.
Workshop materials
Powerpoint presention on the project (also available in PDF format)
Fashion Futures 2025 report
Executive summary giving an overview of the report
Four short animations bringing Fashion Futures scenario to life
How to use our scenarios
Using scenarios effectively takes time, but it’s time well spent. We’ve outlined six suggestions on page 55 of our report for how the scenarios could be used.
- Use the scenarios to future-proof your current business models and processes
- Use the scenarios to develop new strategies
- Use the scenarios to help form your own vision of the future
- Use the scenarios to stimulate partnership working
- Use the scenarios to innovate new product and services
- Use the scenarios for team/personal development
