GLOBAL FASHIONING ASSEMBLY

GLOBAL FASHIONING ASSEMBLY

A global network of fashioning coalitions to decentralise and decolonise fashion knowledge creation & sharing.

The GFA is a unique online gathering of communities from around the world to decenter and decolonise knowledge creation and sharing on body fashioning practices and heritages. Initiated in 2021, it aims to disrupt western-centric global gatherings that often operate as gatekeepers to justify and perpetuate excluding and discriminating logics and validate English-centred knowledge. Rather than the event hosting the communities, the communities pass on the hosting of the event to ensure self-representation, -determination and governance.

Underpinning the GFA are collective ideation, decision-making and execution. Preparations begin two years prior to the Assembly with the hosting communities meeting (bi)monthly to formulate the overall conceptual framework, thematic scopes, hosting communities, planning, budgeting and funding. Tasks are divided organically with smaller groups taking on different responsibilities. Simultaneously, each hosting community decides on its own programme, content(s), format(s), language(s), aesthetics and participants according to its specific experiences and needs.

It is a uniquely innovative and impactful approach about living cultures, craft heritages and fashion knowledges that welcomes a wide diversity of voices and formats. Each hosting community welcomes local stakeholders, communities and audiences in a combination of local languages and English.

The Sharing Councils in-between hosting community programmes are a crucial component of the Assembly, that breaks down the binary often perpetuated in design and craft exchanges between artisans or cultural keepers and viewers. They offer an opportunity for diverse participants to share, reflect and listen.

For its second edition in October 2024, 20 hosting communities in 26 countries, across 6 continents hosted the Assembly, consisting of 40 hours of local programming and 20 hours of Sharing Councils.

GLOBAL FASHIONING ASSEMBLY 2024

GLOBAL FASHIONING ASSEMBLY 2024 EVENTS

  • Fashion Liberation Collective North Africa: “Our OLLA is not YOUR OLLA”

    Fashion Liberation Collective North Africa: “Our OLLA is not YOUR OLLA”

    This is a hybrid collaborative response to the current state of the North African fashion system. Where value and perception are key drivers in how we respond to fashion. We look at how value is assigned and how we can break the cycle. An amazing collaboration with collective members Sacer and founder Nada Koreish. Watch…

  • Fashion + Urban Art: An Angolan Decolonial Performance

    Fashion + Urban Art: An Angolan Decolonial Performance

    For the GFA 2024, Mweno Decolonial Fashion + Art Collective hosted an open-day event to allow attendees to experience fashion and art through the creative work of AfroAsy by Dey Tchissapa, Av X DressCode, Gato Preto, and Marca Buala. The exhibition was based on photographs, video art, graphite, and a catwalk performance aiming to introduce…

  • Pakistan Collective for Decolonial Practice: Apnaiyat

    Pakistan Collective for Decolonial Practice: Apnaiyat

    The Pakistan Collective of Decolonial Practice is organised around transdisciplinary approaches to undoing the deep epistemic violence of our colonial history, convene to discuss, to write, to produce exhibitions and publications that center the work of Pakistani designers, artists, architects, scholars, researchers and poets. For the GFA24, we organised two panels around the theme of…

  • CIMO Croatia: Needle and Thread – A Soft Discourse

    CIMO Croatia: Needle and Thread – A Soft Discourse

    The conversation about female needlework, cottage industries and local weaving and needlework traditions in Croatia and Ireland. CIMO, a nonprofit organisation based in Zagreb (Croatia), is researching the theoretical and creative aspects of fashion and clothing as part of contemporary visual culture. For the GFA24, we focused on the concept of soft arts and softness…

  • Belgium: Not in Vogue – Decentering Fashion Narratives in Flanders

    Belgium: Not in Vogue – Decentering Fashion Narratives in Flanders

    This event seeks to explore power dynamics within the fashion sector in Flanders, while building a community and encouraging conversations. “Not in Vogue: Decentering Fashion Narratives in Flanders” is a community-driven event dedicated to discussing decoloniality, fashion and repair. At its core, this event focuses on sharing perspectives and fostering a deeper understanding of power…

  • Indian Institute of Art and Design: Stitching Stories – Kheta in the Classroom

    Indian Institute of Art and Design: Stitching Stories – Kheta in the Classroom

    The research on the lesser known reversible embroidered quilts of the Shershabadi community from Eastern India was initiated independently by Course Leader, Prof. Saumya Pande, Fashion Design department, Indian Institute of Art and Design (IIAD, New Delhi) in 2017. Over a period of 6 years, 12 field trips were made to Kishanganj and Purnea districts…

  • Hui Auaha o Aotearoa – Open Day at the Fashion Museum

    Hui Auaha o Aotearoa – Open Day at the Fashion Museum

    The New Zealand Fashion Museum is the first digital museum that provides a platform and umbrella for all things fashion in Aotearoa (New Zealand). With no fixed physical location or collection its activities and stories are developed in response to the concerns of the day and the questions and needs of its audiences. Our primary…

  • CiSoM Brasil: A Photograhic Walk of Decolonial Fashion

    CiSoM Brasil: A Photograhic Walk of Decolonial Fashion

    Walking as a pedagogical and a fashion contemplative act. Through walking, we can stroll the past, with history in the present, and possible futures. Pelourinho (Brasil) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a territory where people can learn, experience, and sense Afro-Brazilian aesthetics and culture. Pelourinho is a cultural and commercial center; walking through…

  • Mendit Research Lab Russia

    Mendit Research Lab Russia

    The Mendit Research Lab, founded by Liudmila Aliabieva in Moscow in August 2021, is an independent practice-led female research collective that brings together nine participants who are close in research and creative spirit united by their interest in clothing cultures, sustainable practices, textile activism and co-creative strategies. The Lab operates in a variety of formats, ranging…

  • Witches of the East Collective Turkey: Design Magic Through Craft – Textile Alchemy

    Witches of the East Collective Turkey: Design Magic Through Craft – Textile Alchemy

    As six Turkish women, we call ourselves Witches of the East Collective.’ We are a non-profit, ecofeminist design collective aiming to repair the relationship between humans and nature through ethical, symbiotic, circular, and slow ways of thinking and designing. We are upcyclers, biodesigners, farmers, ethical foragers, and eco-printers whose instruments are textiles, clothing, spaces, and…

  • OwnYourCulture (Kenya): The Evolution of Ancestral Jewelry

    OwnYourCulture (Kenya): The Evolution of Ancestral Jewelry

    Tuesday, October 15 2024 How have ancestral design practices evolved? How are they used today? For our GFA24 hosting, we delve into the process of traditional textile printing, beading, weaving styles over the decades and digital fabric production through artistic practice, fashion design and community collaboration. Moderated by the founder of OwnYourCulture, Chepkemboi Mang’ira, we…

  • Ghana International Fashion Team (GiFt): Sewing a Greener Future for Ghana

    Ghana International Fashion Team (GiFt): Sewing a Greener Future for Ghana

    The Ghana International Fashion Team (GiFt) is an informal collective of five Ghanaian creative professionals, including Ewurasi Ansah (LittlebigEsi – Sustainable Fashion Re-designer), Faustina Apea (Fashion Entrepreneur), Dr. Sela Adjei (Efosela – Artist/Author), Frederick Bamfo (Artist/Researcher) and Beatrice Bee Arthur (Fashion Designer). For our GFA24 hosting programme, we focussed on the devastating impact of Western…

  • Colectivo Malvestidas (Chile): DRESS AND BECOME

    Colectivo Malvestidas (Chile): DRESS AND BECOME

    Methodologies to explore the relationship between dress, identity and the deconstruction of gender and colonialism in Latin America. Colectivo Malvestidas: Vestir y Devenir Our hosting programme consists of a panel discussion “Dress and Become”, which uses a transnational and transdisciplinary methodology to explore the relationship between dress, identity and the deconstruction of gender and colonialism…

  • Lowlands Decolonial Fashion Network: What does Decoloniality Mean in a Dutch Context?

    Lowlands Decolonial Fashion Network: What does Decoloniality Mean in a Dutch Context?

    The Lowlands Decolonial Fashion Network, consisting of FashionClash, the Linen Project, the Dutch Crafts Council, Tailors & Wearers and the Research Collective for Decoloniality & Fashion, organised four one-day in-person field-trips between June and September 2024 to host each other and to reflect on four topics through a decolonial lens: fashion, cultural heritage, crafts and natural resources/local knowledges. In June 2024,…

  • Austrian Center for Fashion Research: Fighting Fascism Through Fashion, Hacking White Supremacy

    Austrian Center for Fashion Research: Fighting Fascism Through Fashion, Hacking White Supremacy

    An invitation to provoke change! as we are facing an almost global shift to the far-right, from a critical fashion research perspective. Fighting Fascism Through Fashion: Hacking White Supremacy, by the Austrian Center for Fashion Research in collaboration with “Fashion and the Far Right: The New Complexity in Style” at the academy of fine arts,…

  • African Fashion Research Institute: UN/FOLDING_RE/FOLDING_FOLDED – Imiphindo kwaXhosa Season 2

    African Fashion Research Institute: UN/FOLDING_RE/FOLDING_FOLDED – Imiphindo kwaXhosa Season 2

    An intimate listening session with a community of makers exploring Xhosa fashion histories & sensibilities in Mrs James home. Our GFA24 hosting programme was a practice in deep listening and knowledge sharing. We hosted a screening and the release of the new seasons stories. This intimate engagement was not just about reading the material culture…

  • Born Nomad: Kazakh Fashion & Arts – An Identity Sandwich

    Born Nomad: Kazakh Fashion & Arts – An Identity Sandwich

    Kazakh fashion experts, designers, stylists, craftspeople and artists amidst post-colonial and post-communist aftermath. Inheriting suppressed identity and language, sharing the tumultuous events of the XX century and being pushed by the XXI century globalization and geopolitics, Kazakh fashion, crafts and arts are dealing with several parallel challenges. On the one hand, rediscovering their traditions and…

  • Fashion Act Now: Reclaiming Community Practices – From Fashion Industry to Fashion Commons

    Fashion Act Now: Reclaiming Community Practices – From Fashion Industry to Fashion Commons

    For this GFA24 hosting, experts speak about how to degrow the European Fashion System and move towards a fashion commons whilst centering justice. Commons are alternatives to growth-based capitalist systems, emerging when communities collaborate to self-provision or to reach shared goals in fair and democratic ways. OurCommon.Market, a project powered by activist group Fashion Act…

  • Cobbled Goods Canada: Imagining a Decentralised Footwear Industry

    Cobbled Goods Canada: Imagining a Decentralised Footwear Industry

    A speculative fiction workshop exploring an alternate world where business size is capped preventing the concentration of corporate power. This speculative workshop is based on the Fashion Fictions model which brings people together to engage with “fictional visions of alternative fashion cultures and systems.” For our GFA24 hosting programme, we bring together sustainable footwear pioneers to explore…

  • ABYA YALA Coalition: Buen Vivir of the Andean Indigenous People and Fashion

    ABYA YALA Coalition: Buen Vivir of the Andean Indigenous People and Fashion

    Online conversation (in Spanish) on “Buen Vivir of the Andean indigenous peoples and fashion” at the Aurora School (Catamarca, Argentina) Buen Vivir of the native communities of the Andes can be synthesised as living in plenitude, knowing how to live in harmony with the cycles of Mother Earth, the cosmos, life and history, and in…