Fashion Practice

Technologies and Practices

This Special Issue explores the synergy between evolving technologies and new creative practices in the fashion industry. Making fashion has always been inextricably linked with technology, from the looms of the first Industrial Revolution to the emerging proposals for ethical and sustainable use of intelligent systems and collaborative robotics in the European Commission’s vision for Industry 5.0.

In the current era of rapid adoption of virtual fashion design and prototyping tools (e.g., Clo3D, Browzwear and generative AI solutions), the tools, processes and skills used in the creation of fashion’s physical products have received relatively little academic attention. Innovation in this space is driven by the high-volume fashion industry, which has developed automated processes that often de-skill makers, or remove them from the process entirely. This creates opportunities for new technologies to be developed which support smaller scale, higher value and more sustainable fashion production, working with makers, rather than replacing them. As it becomes increasingly necessary to re-shore fashion production to countries with diminished manufacturing bases, and to localise supply chains, the tools for technology supported small to medium scale fashion production will be crucial in delivering this change. Emerging research in this space is inter- and transdisciplinary, leveraging the collaborative potential for fashion practitioners to work with engineers and computer scientists to develop innovative fashion production solutions.

In parallel with the need to explore new production tools, the shift towards digital practice has also necessitated an urgent return to studies of design and making processes, to reveal what is being gained and lost by digitising and automating the creation of fashion. This creates opportunities for studies bridging fashion theory, anthropology and communication, to explore key questions, such as how practitioners learn and become skilled, what role tools play in this process, and the impacts this has on fashion practice. By extension the social, educational and policy implications of changes in fashion production are also vital to explore.

To highlight emerging research in these spaces, this special issue focuses on the following thematic areas:

1. Innovative Fashion Tools
   • Innovative technological developments for fashion production. E.g., Fashion Robotics, Agile Tooling, Mobile and Distributed Production.
   • Novel fashion applications for tools from other industries. E.g, Automotive stitching tools, Computer vision solutions for automated cutting.
   • Technologies for circularity: Disassembly, repair and re-use.
2. Technologies Supporting Creativity
   • Hacking fashion tools to create innovative outcomes.
   • Human-Computer and Human-Robot Collaboration.
   • New interfaces for fashion technologies including low and no code solutions. E.g., Visual and Gestural Programming, Virtual Design Spaces
3. Interdisciplinary Methods to Study Emerging Fashion Practices
   • Anthropological studies of innovative practice.
   • Informing new technology design through empirical studies of making.
   • Novel theoretical perspectives on technology applications and adoption in the fashion industry.
   • Navigating academic and industry partnerships, commercialisation of IP.
4. Industrial and Educational Policy for Fashion
   • Re-shoring fashion production. Place-based making.
   • Workforce upskilling and training.
   • Legacy systems and barriers to modernisation.
   • Enabling local access to new fashion tools. E.g., Advanced Micro-factories, Business Clustering.

We invite authors to submit abstracts discussing any of the topics above. We particularly welcome discipline crossing research which speaks to several of these themes.

Deadline for abstracts – 31st  January 2026

Authors of selected abstracts will be notified by 27th February 2026.

Deadline for full papers for peer review– 31st August 2026

Publication date – Summer/Autumn 2027

About the Editors: Postlethwaite and Atkinson are Co-Leads of the Fashion Technologies Research Group at Manchester Fashion Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Susan Postlethwaite is Professor of Fashion Technologies at Manchester Fashion Institute and Director of the Robotics Living Lab (RoLL). She is an alumna of the prestigious Policy Fellowship programme at the Royal Academy of Engineering and was co-investigator for AHRC funded Creative Clusters Future Fashion Factory: Digitally Enabled Design & Manufacture of Designer Products for Circular Economies. Susan is an industry expert for N+ Back to Baselines NERC Funded. Scientifically Validated Environmental and Design Baselines, Standards and Principals. She is also a member of AHRC Peer Review College and was a panel member for REF 2021. Panel D. Sub-panel 32.  Following a fashion design career working for Ralph Lauren and Georgio Armani, Susan was Director of the Fashion Futures Masters Programme at London College of Fashion and Senior Research Fellow Fashion Programme at Royal College of Art. Her research interests include new robotic and cobot technologies and automation in manufacturing, micro factories, reshoring of the UK fashion design/manufacturing sector, Industry 5.0 economic theory, policy inclusion and circular economy agendas across regional and central government. She has a long-term collaboration with the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult.

Dr Douglas Atkinson is Reader in Fashion Technologies at Manchester Fashion Institute. His research focuses on makers’ perception of digital materials and the role of the senses (particularly touch) in physical and digital creative processes. He has held a Co-Investigator role on the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods MIDAS (Methodological Innovation in Digital Arts and Social Sciences): Embodiment project, investigating understandings of the body and embodiment in digital fashion practice. His research has also contributed to the EPSRC Digital Sensoria: Design Through Digital Perceptual Experience and ERC In-Touch: Digital Touch Communication projects. Before joining Manchester Fashion Institute Douglas worked at London College of Fashion: UAL (LCF) for over a decade in research roles and as a specialist lecturer in Fashion Wearable Technology. He has also held research and teaching roles at the Royal College of Art, Central Saint Martins: UAL, Chelsea College of Arts: UAL and Brunel University of London. Prior to embarking on an academic career, Douglas was a creative pattern cutter, working with a diverse range of companies, from large international luxury brands to SME and micro businesses whose production focused on sustainability and upcycling.