[Commlist] International Conference: Prosperity Fashion

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Prosperity Fashion


International Conference
13-14 February 2025
Università degli Studi di Firenze
Florence, Italy

Open Call for contributions

The fashion system has been questioning for years how to decrease its 
negative impact on the environment and people, trying to improve 
individual elements: from natural, organic or recycled materials to 
zero-waste design methodologies, from slower production processes to 
socially responsible actions, from development of local supply chains to 
inclusive communication campaigns, from blockchain traceability of 
products to more reliable trend forecasts through artificial 
intelligence, from social engagement to large scale regulation. Thanks 
to the contribution of researchers, practitioners, and activists, a new 
awareness in civil society about the finite nature of materials and 
resources has been achieved, and the definition of standards and 
certifications regulating fashion processes and products towards 
circular and closed ecosystems has been refined and broadly disseminated.
This awareness, however, often conflicts with the need for constant and 
exponential economic growth, on which fashion brands base their creative 
direction, communication, branding, and sales decisions. The last few 
decades, marked by climate, humanitarian and health crises, have 
prompted debate about the prevailing economic model centred on 'GDP 
Fetishism' (Stiglitz 2009), which consists of holding Gross Domestic 
Product (GDP) as definitive and universal, and thus pursuing it at the 
cost of dramatically burdening environmental, human, and social 
resources. Many researchers have gone back to the criticisms made by the 
Club of Rome in 1972 to verify and actualise them, fuelling the need not 
only for a new direction for economics and production, but also for new 
definitions and terminologies for this urgent change of pace: a-growth 
and post-development politics (Latouche 2012), post-growth fashion 
(Fletcher 2011), regenerative marketing (Kotler, Foglia, Sarkar 2023), 
restorative design (Antonelli 2019), sufficiency-based economy (Bocken 
et al. 2022) and post-industrial design (Cross 1981), expressions of a 
new approach to nature, seen as our ally and subject of an ethic of care 
(Gambardella et al. 2024).
Underlying all these reflections is the ambitious goal of redefining the 
concept of prosperity, hitherto understood almost exclusively in its 
economic sense, but instead indicating etymologically what is in keeping 
with hope, what is preferable for the future. The concept of prosperity 
therefore requires a new interpretation consisting of 'a fundamental 
revision of the relationship between the economic and the social' (Moore 
2023), in a non-mercantile but relational prosperity (Latouche 2012).
The dimension of relationality is a fundamental component of a new 
conception of prosperity, conceived as a resource of both economic and 
human value, generated by a community within environmental and ethical 
constraints. This idea of prosperity has as its objective the 'common 
good' (Sandel 2021) not only of the community, understood as a group of 
people, but also of the trans-species, post-phenomnological (van Dongen 
2019) and more-than-human (Wakkary 2021) relationships that coexist in it.
Starting from this premise and adopting the methodologies of prosperity 
thinking (Vignoli, Roversi, Jatwani, Tiriduzzi 2021), the conference 
questions the future of fashion through its possible relationship with 
economy, environment and society.
With its complexity, can fashion move beyond its singular profit-driven 
vision in order to develop the ideas of multi-faceted shared well-being? 
Can research into materials, processes, and fashion products shape new 
social and cultural models oriented towards prosperity? Can fashion be 
an example of this change that is capable of redirecting other knowledge 
and disciplines? Can the EU's legal framework for sustainable 
development and the relevant EU legislation for the textile and fashion 
industries help drive the transition? Can fashion redirect the 
relationship between human and non-human, individual and territory, 
nature and technology? Can we move from the current 'Fashion 
Prosperity', understood as fashion's pursuit of its economic growth, to 
'Prosperity Fashion', a broad vision of the future and a transversal and 
contemporary focus on people, planet, economy, and technologies?

Scholars, researchers, educators, and practitioners in the fields of 
fashion theory, design, communication, history, and other social 
sciences in their many facets and interdisciplinary contributions - by 
way of example, economics, politics, sociology, and law - are invited to 
send a proposal that contributes to shaping the concept of prosperity 
fashion, through transdisciplinary looks and different methodological 
approaches. Contributions may investigate theories, ideas, utopias, 
visions, experiences, projects, both of the present and of the past, 
which are considered representative of an idea of prosperity fashion, 
that is, acts of change in a fashion system that can lead to shared and 
widespread well-being. Some possible, but not exclusive, areas of 
investigation may concern: materials and fabrics; design strategies; 
education; technologies; geopolitics; manufacturing processes; economic 
and social models; codes of conduct; labeling and marking norms; 
sustainability and trademark protection; communication.


Submissions (in .doc or .docx format) should be structured as: Title and 
subtitle; Keywords (max 5); Abstract (max 400 words); References (max 
5); Short biography of the author(s) (max 75 words); a sentence 
answering the question 'how does the paper contribute to defining the 
concept of prosperity fashion?'.
Submissions should be sent in English to (prosperityfashion /at/ dida.unifi.it) 
<mailto:(prosperityfashion /at/ dida.unifi.it)> by 30 July 2024 indicating 
'Prosperity Fashion' in the subject line. The conference will be held on 
13-14 February 2025 at the University of Florence. Full papers, selected 
through a double-blind peer review process, will be published in 2025.

The conference is hosted by Fashion Highlight Journal.

IMPORTANT DATES
Abstract submissions by 30 July 2024
Selected abstracts notification by 15 September 2024
Full paper submission by 15 Novembre 2024
Full paper review notification by 15 January 2025
Conference (in presence and online): 13-14 February 2025

INFO
Venue:
Università degli Studi di Firenze,
Department of Architecture,
Via della Mattonaia 8, Florence, Italy

(prosperityfashion /at/ dida.unifi.it) <mailto:(prosperityfashion /at/ dida.unifi.it)>




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