[Commlist] CFP: Digital Design & Beyond: Rethinking Critical Digital Fashion Trajectories

Call for paper Fashion Highlight Issue 8 (2026): DIGITAL DESIGN & 
BEYOND: RETHINKING CRITICAL DIGITAL FASHION TRAJECTORIES

Guest Editors: Benjamin Wild and Natalia Berger
Over the past decade, and with heightened urgency in the post-Covid 
period, fashion has undergone a profound digital realignment. No longer 
confined to discrete tools or isolated innovations, digitalisation has 
become a structuring condition of contemporary fashion practice. From 3D 
modeling suites and configurators to generative AI for modeling and 
product development, digital twins of avatars and garments for 
production and archival purposes, virtual showrooms, digital fashion for 
gaming, and platform-based retail infrastructures, digital technologies 
mediate the conception, production, circulation, and experience of 
garments. What has emerged is not simply a new aesthetic, but a 
reconfiguration of fashion as a socio-technical approach, wherein 
creativity, labor, identity, and value are increasingly negotiated 
through technological software and infrastructures.

Scholars in design research, fashion, media, science and technology 
studies have begun tracing this shift. Yet much discourse remains 
polarised between celebratory narratives of innovation and skeptical 
accounts concerned with authenticity, labor displacement, and ecological 
costs. These tensions reveal a deeper need for critical frameworks that 
can situate digital fashion within broader transformations of cultural 
values, product development, integrated platforms, and materiality. 
Digital fashion design is neither immaterial nor frictionless; rather, 
it is embedded in networks of data extraction and manipulation, cloud 
computing, algorithmic governance, and global supply chains.

To address these complexities, this special issue introduces a 
conceptual model of three interrelated trajectories of digitalisation:

Partial digitalisation encompasses digitally assisted processes that 
augment but do not fundamentally disrupt established design and 
production workflows.
Hybrid digitalisation refers to the entanglement of physical and virtual 
systems, where garments, bodies, and narratives circulate fluidly 
between material and computational domains.
Full digitalisation describes practices in which the fashion object 
becomes entirely virtual, enabling new economies of value, identity, and 
representation yet also distancing fashion from its material roots.
These trajectories are not linear stages but overlapping modes of how 
digital systems reorganize agency: human (fashion designers and 
operators) and nonhuman actors (software, algorithms, and platforms). 
They also foreground the unevenness of digital adoption across global 
contexts and the differential vulnerabilities that arise from 
technological dependency, skill hierarchies, and opaque proprietary 
infrastructures.

Crucially, digital fashion compels us to rethink foundational categories 
within fashion studies: What does materiality mean when fabrics are 
simulated? What happens to handcraftsmanship when humans collaborate 
with automated machines? What constitutes authorship when apparel 
designs are co-generated by AI or crowdsourced by platform communities?  
How should sustainability be evaluated when the environmental footprint 
shifts from textiles to data centers? These questions signal a broader 
epistemic shift in how fashion is defined, practiced, and governed.



SUBTOPICS

1. Digital fashion’s impact on design, production, and communication 
processes

How is digitalisation reshaping the core processes of fashion practice, 
and what new dependencies and vulnerabilities emerge as creative work 
becomes increasingly mediated by computational and automated tools? We 
welcome contributions to digitalisation workflows’ new efficiencies, 
creative limitations, and skill erosion. Topics may include:

-3D modeling and generative AI for garment digital twins’ development
-Digital prototyping and sampling tactile and craft-based skills
-Virtual visualisation tools shaping marketing, retail, and consumer 
perception
-Proprietary platforms access and creative autonomy


2. Pedagogies of digital fashion for virtual, AI-aided, and hybrid practices

How is evolving fashion education integrating virtual, AI-aided, and 
hybrid design practices in garment prototyping? We invite contributions 
related to digital and hybrid didactic practices and results, new 
curricula models and educational experiences. Topics may include:

-Virtual garment creation through generative AI-driven modeling
-Digital literacy about algorithmic bias, and assessment of 
sustainability impact, data governance, and rapid obsolescence of tools.
-Comparison of craft-based, computational, and hybrid prototyping practices.
-Access to and adoption of digital resources for extended participation 
in emerging new creative practices.


3. Mass fashion personalisation and designer-consumer co-creation

What are the design pathways and skills necessary for parametric 
custom-apparel design? What possibilities and threats emerge when 
consumers become co-designers? We welcome research on parametric custom 
design, customisation platforms, real-time personalisation, and 
co-creative models that challenge traditional roles in fashion design 
and production.  Topics may include:

-Body data-driven garment pattern design and construction
-User interface and UX design of digital and virtual fashion co-creation 
platforms
-Garment customisation and implications for supply chains
-Open-source design processes and collaborative digital making, creative 
authorship in consumer-influenced or -AI generated design


4. Design labor, professional identity, and ethics in platformised 
digital fashion practices

As digital fashion becomes increasingly shaped by platform economies, 
automation and decentralised systems, the role and identity of fashion 
designer is under scrutiny. How are platform-based work, algorithmic 
visibility, and working with emerging technologies redefining the 
creative labor, professional authorship and ethical responsibilities in 
design and product development, as well as the identity of the fashion 
designer as a professional? We invite contributions that critically 
examine the structural, cultural, and economic implications of working 
within digital fashion platforms, including issues of recognition, 
intellectual property, labor rights, and data ethics. Topics may include:

-Labor ethics, algorithmic visibility and creative autonomy in 
platform-based digital fashion gig economies
-Creative authorship, IP justice, recognition, and ownership in 
decentralised design ecosystems
-New creative identities, cultural responsibility and power structures 
in global virtual fashion environments
-Data governance, design accountability, and ethical use of AI in design 
and fitting practices


5. Sustainability, transparency, and the hidden materialities of digital 
fashion

Although digital fashion appears immaterial, its infrastructure has real 
environmental costs, such as energy use, hardware dependency, and 
digital waste. How can designers engage with these issues in sustainable 
product development? Topics may include:

-Energy and resource use in 3D rendering and digital asset creation
-Hardware lifecycles, e-waste and overflow in digital fashion production
-Transparency and traceability in digital design systems
-Critical perspectives on the “immaterial” narrative of digital fashion


6. Designing for digital bodies and identity in virtual and hybrid 
environments

How do digital bodies, avatars, and virtual fittings reshape fashion 
design practices and the way designers engage with embodiment, identity, 
and representation? This theme invites research that explores the 
embodied nature of digital fashion design—both from the perspective of 
the designer’s own bodily experience and in the creation of inclusive, 
expressive virtual garments for diverse digital bodies. Topics may include:

-Embodied dimensions of digital design: how designers use their own 
bodies in virtual garment creation
-Digital fitting technologies and their implications for design 
decision-making
-Designing for body diversity, inclusion, identity expression, and 
gender performance in avatar-based fashion
-Virtual garments and bodily presence in gaming, XR, and metaverse contexts



SELECTED REFERENCES

Boughlala, A., & Smelik, A. (2024). Tracing the History of Digital 
Fashion. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 43(3), 
171-186. https://doi.org/10.1177/0887302X241283504 
<https://doi.org/10.1177/0887302X241283504> (Original work published 2025)

Casciani, D., Chkanikova, O., & Pal, R. (2022). Exploring the nature of 
digital transformation in the fashion industry: opportunities for supply 
chains, business models, and sustainability-oriented innovations. 
Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 18(1), 773–795. 
https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2022.2125640 
<https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2022.2125640>

Chan, H. H. Y., Henninger, C., Boardman, R., & Blazquez Cano, M. (2024). 
The adoption of digital fashion as an end product: A systematic 
literature review of research foci and future research agenda. Journal 
of Global Fashion Marketing, 15(1), 155–180. 
https://doi.org/10.1080/20932685.2023.2251033 
<https://doi.org/10.1080/20932685.2023.2251033>

Choi, K.-H. (2022). 3D dynamic fashion design development using digital 
technology and its potential on online platforms. Fashion and Textiles, 
9(9), 2–28. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40691-021-00286-1 
<https://doi.org/10.1186/s40691-021-00286-1>

Crepax, R., & Liu, M. (2024). Affective Fashion Trends: Aesthetic and 
Digital Affects from Nostalgia to AR. Fashion Theory, 28(5–6), 839–865. 
https://doi.org/10.1080/1362704X.2024.2389595 
<https://doi.org/10.1080/1362704X.2024.2389595>

Lyu, Y., Wang, Z., Ye, Q., Sun, Y., & Chao, J. (2025). Body data-driven 
garment pattern construction in digital fashion innovations: A review. 
Textile Research Journal, 0(0). 
https://doi.org/10.1177/00405175251352800 
<https://doi.org/10.1177/00405175251352800>

Repenning, A. (2024). Speeding up, slowing down, losing grip: On digital 
media metronomes and timespace friction in the platformised 
temporalities of fashion design. Environment and Planning A: Economy and 
Space, 56(5), 1503–1520. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X241231691 
<https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X241231691>

Särmäkari, N., & Vänskä, A. (2022). ‘Just hit a button!’ – fashion 4.0 
designers as cyborgs, experimenting and designing with generative 
algorithms. International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and 
Education, 15(2), 211–220. https://doi.org/10.1080/17543266.2021.1991005 
<https://doi.org/10.1080/17543266.2021.1991005>

Tepe, J., & Koohnavard, S. (2023). Fashion and game design as hybrid 
practices: approaches in education to creating fashion-related 
experiences in digital worlds. International Journal of Fashion Design, 
Technology and Education, 16(1), 37–45. 
https://doi.org/10.1080/17543266.2022.2103591 
<https://doi.org/10.1080/17543266.2022.2103591>

Wulff G, Gustafsson E (2026), Fashioning sustainable innovation. 
Exploring digital transformation in fashion through mass customisation 
and personalisation. International Journal of Innovation Science, Vol. 
ahead-of-print No. 
ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJIS-03-2025-0128 
<https://doi.org/10.1108/IJIS-03-2025-0128>




ABOUT THE GUEST EDITORS

Dr Daria Casciani (Politecnico di Milano – Department of Design, Milan)

PhD in Design, Senior Researcher at the Design 
Department, Politecnico di Milano, where she collaborates with the 
Fashion in Process Research Lab developing research and projects at the 
intersection of fashion, sustainability, and innovation in the creative 
industries. Since 2023 she leads the Circular Fashion-Tech Lab, an 
interdisciplinary socio-technical research infrastructure supporting the 
digital, green, and circular transitions of the fashion industry, 
integrating Industry 4.0 and 5.0 technologies through a design-driven 
approach. She is also faculty member of the Design for the Fashion 
System Master Course at the School of Design of the Politecnico di 
Milano, teaching Fashion-Tech Design and Advanced Manufacturing for 
Sustainable Fashion. Her research focus on the transformative role of 
digital technologies such as 3D modeling, parametric design, 3D body 
scanning, additive manufacturing and collaborative robotics in fashion 
design and prototyping. 



Dr Natalia Kataila (Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki)

Natalia Kataila (formerly Särmäkari), Doctor of Arts, is a fashion and 
design researcher with a professional background in clothing design. She 
currently works as a senior lecturer and head of the Master’s degree 
programme in fashion and clothing at Metropolia University of Applied 
Sciences in Helsinki. The programme is dedicated to responsible 
leadership and the circular economy in the textile and fashion industry. 
In her doctoral and postdoctoral research (2017–2024) at Aalto 
University, she examined digital fashion as a phenomenon and its impact 
on the profession and authorship of fashion designers, in convergence 
with digital culture, algorithms, and data-driven practices. More 
recently, her research has addressed digital fashion through the lenses 
of platformisation, the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of artificial 
intelligence, and the advantages and limitations of this emerging field.


INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE AUTHORS

We welcome full papers in English with a range length of 4000-6000 
words, footnotes and bibliographical references excluded. It is highly 
recommended to use the template and APA STYLE as a formatting guideline. 
We also welcome the following formats:

Book, digital games and digital exhibition reviews with a range length 
of 1500-2500 words.
Case studies and digital fashion projects with a range length of 
1500-2500 words. These contributions should include a visual / digital 
abstract in the format of video that showcases the projects.
The deadline for submitting the proposals (saved in .doc or .docx 
format) via the platform is 31 May 2026. Issue 8 will be published in 2026.
No article processing charge is required.

Download the call for papers here: 
https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/fh/announcement/view/90


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