Mending, Making and Mythology: Responsible Fashion Practice

Mending, Making and Mythology: Responsible Fashion Practice  

This exhibition celebrates responsible fashion practice, through storytelling, craft, and innovation across three programmes. First-year Fashion students transformed deadstock fabrics and old garments into contemporary shirts using Japanese Boro-inspired techniques and Sashiko mending, learning that visible repair can be beautiful design. Third-year Fashion Design & Marketing students envisioned future markets through upcycled 'hero' jackets, engaging with mending hubs and integrating responsible making into brand development. Second-year Fashion Communication students explored folklore as fashion narrative, channelling ancient transformation traditions into contemporary editorial storytelling.  
Together, these works demonstrate that responsible fashion is a catalyst for creativity, connecting hand-worked craft, cultural memory, and forward-thinking design into garments and images that carry meaning and value. 

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Fashion 1st Year - FA4024 Introduction to Fashion Practice / FA4025 Fashion Practice 

Inspired by traditional Japanese Boro Jackets, 1st year fashion students created their own cloth using old garments and deadstock fabrics. Students were introduced to visible mending techniques, including like Sashiko, and applied embellishment by hand to their cloth. Through creative drape and pattern cutting exercises the students were then challenged to transform this cloth into a shirt.  

Module Staff: Kat Brotheridge, Emily Edge, Kristen Pickering 

Technical Team: Gary Marshall, Kim Smith, Denise Crawford, Jess Bailey, Donna Auchterlounie, Grace Hooker. 

Fashion Design & Marketing 3rd Year – Module FA5006 Fashion Futures 

Students were challenged to create a brand and a product range for a future market, building around their ‘hero’ piece, they had to design and make a jacket that integrated responsible design and make through upcycling. The module encouraged engagement with IMPACT+ mending hubs and Sustainable Fashion Week. Suzanne Nicholson introduced students to upcycling examples and visible mending techniques. 

Module Staff: Sarah Walton, Clare Freeman, Jacob Goff, Lottie Maddison 

Technical Team: Gary Marshall, Kim Smith, Denise Crawford, Jess Bailey, Donna Auchterlounie, Lesley- Anne Pace, Shannon Thompson. 

Fashion Communication 2nd Year – Module FA5019 Fashion Editorial  

In this module, students explored storytelling through curated fashion narratives, expressed through styling, photography and fashion writing. Through the theme FOLKLORE - STORIES, CUSTOMS, BELIEFS, the power of visual and written narratives was considered through concept, styling and photography, with a creative and experimental approach to journalism 

Shoots drew on rich traditions in culture and folklore where masks embodied characters, channelled stories, and transformed the wearer. Created from reclaimed materials with hand-worked details, these pieces served as modern reinterpretations of that history, bringing personal mythology and craft-driven sustainability into contemporary fashion narratives. 

Module Staff: Gayle Cantrell, Louise Mavin, Christopher Hodge  
Technical Staff: Jennine Wilson