Fashion Education: Cultivating Fashion Designers-Plants

In the context of the contemporary social and ecological crisis, this contribution proposes a reinterpretation of current fashion design educational programs through a bio-inspired perspective, with the intent of guiding next generation fashion designers to successfully face such issues. The investigation delineates the theoretical subsoil to frame the topic by illustrating some key concepts connected to ‘fashion futuring’, ‘making kin’, plant neurobiology, collective authorship and co-design, translated within fashion studies. Specific plant neurobiology and botanical definitions are then applied to the qualitative analysis of two peculiar didactical case studies: the Master in Co-diseño de Moda y Sostenibilidad at the Escola d’Art i Superior de Disseny de Valencia (Spain); the course in Biomoda at the Universidad de los Andes (Colombia). Proven the evidence that nowadays the needs of the planet and those of the fashion labour market must be realigned, the ultimate goal in education must be to train professionals capable of pursuing principles of sustainability. This is possible implementing redirection practices in a ‘futuring’ perspective, by operating as a collective parental-like organism establishing multidisciplinary dialogues. The vegetal metaphor allows weaving analogies between specific plant attitudes and today’s essential design requirements. Such aspects are not only useful to visualize and guide the creation of collective paths and sharing dynamics, but also to enhance the structuring of emerging experimental academic fashion curricula on the model of the fashion designer-plant hybridization.