State of Fashion, a platform originated to re-think the fashion system, has announced their activities program containing four interventions: Introspection, Origins, Transition and Release.

At State of Fashion the current game-changing events in the world, Covid-19 and worldwide Black Lives Matter movement, made them reflect their message. So far, they addressed the ecological footprint of fashion production, the promises of new materials, and fairness related to labour and working conditions, to explore how to redefine the ethics and values of fashion. This framework was the focus of their previous curator José Teunissen, and the 2018 exhibition ‘Searching for the New Luxury’. The events of 2020 almost automatically led to the new, broader focus of de-colonialism, that until now has been largely overlooked.

This is An Intervention

In the coming months, they will host four interventions featuring controversial readings, online talks, interactive workshops, and inspiring videos, films and visuals about the fashion system, its flaws and its future. First, they take a critical look at the fashion system and our role in it during an intervention dubbed Introspection. In the second intervention themed Origins in November, we trace the roots of the system and highlight work of those unseen. In the new year, we search for ways to rebuild the system in the third intervention themed Transition. Finally, in parallel with the announcement of a new curator team for State of Fashion 2022, we look for ways forward, in the intervention themed Release.

Join the conversation: 28 October, in Whataboutery #1

For each intervention, they invite thinkers and makers from different parts of the world to take over our platform. For the first intervention in October, they collaborate amongst others anthropologist Sandra Niessen (Research Collective for Decolonizing Fashion) and curator and writer Stephanie Afrifa for an introspection. This intervention dives into the question of what happens to designers, labels, producers, educators and others in fashion, when we revise the colonial values fashion is still largely based on?

Longread 'Regenerative Fashion: There can be no Other'
Strategies to revise fashion are based primarily on two issues: material and labour. As laudable and important as these efforts are, they are not sufficient to solve the crisis we are in.
Read 'Regenerative Fashion: There can be no Other'

Whataboutery #1
October 28th This ‘Whataboutery’ offers you the chance to listen to voices that are being systematically silenced and erased by the fashion industry and gives you the opportunity to enrich your perspective...
Find out more about Whataboutery #1

Plug-In: Culture.Fashion
A Plug-In is organized under the umbrella of the values driven and open network Culture.Fashion. Under this Plug-In, content connections are made between Dutch platforms such as OSCAM/Mafb, M-ODE and FASHIONCLASH that deal with similar themes within their current activities. On behalf of several platforms, three designers/makers are invited to actively join the conversation.
Amber Jea Slooten (The Fabricant) is one of the designers featured in the OSCAM x Modemuse: The New Normal exhibition. Her work has been presented via various platforms in the past years, currently on show in The New Normal (until 2nd of November). Since the lockdown, many socio-political issues have been amplified, from social distancing to the #BlackLivesMatter-movement. As a society, we are asked to find a ‘new normal’. But what does the new normal actually mean? OSCAM/Modemuze asked designers and bloggers to tell what it is that occupies their mind right now and reflect on these times on a personal, professional, social and global scale through the lens of fashion. The New Normal is on show until 2nd of November 2020.

Giorgio Toppin (XHOSA) has presented work with both Mafb and FASHIONCLASH projects. With his work, Giorgio tries to tell the story of what it means to be a black man in today’s society. Currently, he is working on a presentation for FASHIONCLASH Festival. This presentation will be developed in cooperation with Black Harmony and is part of the project around the theme of diaspora. For this he goes back to his roots in Suriname to research local craftmanschip. Lastly, the Toneelacademie Maastricht performance graduate Princes Isatu Hassan Bangura will join. Together with Via Zuid, FASHIONCLASH is co-producting her graduation project ‘Great Apes Of The West Coast’.

In addition, iArts Maastricht students are invited to actively join by including the dialogue in their research. Together with second year students from iArts Maastricht, Nina Willems and Linda Valkeman are building a ‘Decolonial Counter Archive’. In this archive they try to make stories and images from non-western cultures, that are often not visible in "regular archives", visible for the audience. ‘a Fashion Counter Archive’ is based on the archive of the preliminary research by Linda Valkeman in her own projects, and artistic research, done by the students in the months leading up to FASHIONCLASH Festival. “It’s our aim to enter into a new dialogue with visitors, based on the 'Decolonial Counter Archive.'”

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