[Commlist] Fashion Highlight -Issue 4- Call for papers (2024): Fashion’s fibres, as planetary flows

Fashion Highlight -Issue 4-  Call for papers  (2024): FASHION’S FIBRES 
AS PLANETARY FLOWS

Guest Editors: Alice Payne and Anneke Smelik

Fibre, the basis of fashion’s materiality, is experiencing rising demand 
year on year, reflecting the insatiable desire for ‘more’ that defines 
the dominant fashion system. With an annual consumption of 116 million 
tonnes in 2022, close to a doubling in 20 years (Textile Exchange 2023), 
humanity’s appetite for fibre has never been more voracious.
Recent studies on fashion’s fibre are diverse: including comparative 
analyses of different fibres’ sustainability benefits or challenges, 
analysis of their material flows, value chains (Mellick et. al 2021) and 
cultural histories (Smelik 2023). In industry contexts there are calls 
for fibre to be traceable from all sources – whether from forests, oil 
fields, farms, or laboratories – and their impacts to be quantified and 
reduced (e.g., UNECE 2021; Changing Markets 2022).
This Call for Papers proposes a planetary perspective on fibre, one in 
which fibre is viewed as material flows and forces on and of both human 
and non-human, the living and the technological, and the crowded 
continuum between them. Following Morton (2013), fibres such as 
polyester may be seen as ‘hyperobjects’: objects so vast, so 
planet-wrapping in their spatial impact and so long in their temporal 
lifespan (from ancient fossil fuel origins to eventual 
photo-degradation), that they resist comprehension.
Viewed through a planetary lens, fibres are unruly: no corner of the 
earth is free of microfibres, they persist in air, water and soil, 
coagulate in oceans. Fibres can be living technologies, in the case of 
genetically modified cotton plants, or blended combinations of 
biological and synthetic matter in stubborn melanges that resist easy 
separation.
Fibres are traded: they are commodities hedged on the futures markets, 
travelling through global value chains and across national borders. 
Fibres are branded as products. As sustainability credentials continue 
to be fiercely contested, the eco-labels associated with varieties of 
cotton or wool (whether certified as ‘responsible’, ‘organic’, or 
‘regenerative’) can command a premium.
A posthuman (Braidotti 2016) perspective on fibre recognises the 
vitality of fibres, or as a ‘world of active materials’ as Ingold puts 
it (2013), as well as the politics, power dynamics, exchanges and agency 
of the many kinds of humans, non-humans, more-than-humans that together 
create fibre as matter. This Call for Papers proposes that a posthuman 
perspective can support analysis of the dynamics, ethics and materiality 
of fibre at a planetary scale. This Call for Papers invites reflections, 
provocations, and speculations on fashion's future, focusing on the tiny 
strands of fibre that are aggregated by the tonne, traded as 
commodities, spun into yarns, branded as products, and wrestled over in 
the marketplace.
We invite papers on individual fibre stories of all forms, from viscose, 
cotton, wool, silk, polyester, nylon and beyond, on the role of fibre in 
a circular economy, the governance of fibre, the ethics of fibre, the 
cultural histories of new and old fibre technologies, fibre and place, 
and provocations on fibre’s agency and materiality. This call aims to 
stimulate a dialogue about fibre as the fundamental element of fashion, 
shaping its present and future.

REFERENCES
Braidotti, R. (2016). Posthuman critical theory. Critical posthumanism 
and planetary futures, 13-32.
Changing Markets Foundation. (2022). Synthetics Anonymous 2.0: Fashion’s 
persistent plastic problem. 
https://changingmarkets.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Synthetics-Anonymous-2-online-reports-layout.pdf
Ingold, T. (2013). Making: Anthropology, archaeology, art and 
architecture. Routledge.
Mellick, Z., Payne, A., & Buys, L. (2021). From Fibre to Fashion: 
Understanding the Value of Sustainability in Global Cotton Textile and 
Apparel Value Chains. Sustainability, 13(22), 12681. 
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12681.
Morton, T. (2013). Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of 
the World. U of Minnesota Press.
Smelik, A. (2023). Polyester: A Cultural History. Fashion Practice, 
15(2), 279–299. https://doi.org/10.1080/17569370.2023.2196158
Textile Exchange. (2023). Materials Market Report 2023. 
https://textileexchange.org/app/uploads/2023/11/Materials-Market-Report-2023.pdf
UNECE. (2021). Policy brief – Harnessing the potential of blockchain 
technology for due diligence and sustainability in cotton value chains. 
https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2021-04/ECE_TRADE_C_CEFACT_2021_12E-TextilePolicyBrief_0.pdf

ABOUT THE GUEST EDITORS
Dr Alice Payne is a Professor and Dean of the School of Fashion and 
Textiles at RMIT. Her research focuses on environmental and social 
sustainability issues throughout the life cycle of clothing. Recent work 
has examined labour issues in the cotton value chain, as well as 
technologies to address the problem of textile waste. She is author of 
the book Designing Fashion’s Future, co-editor of Global Perspectives on 
Sustainable Fashion, and is an award-winning designer and educator.
Professor emerita Anneke Smelik was Professor of Visual Culture and 
Fashion Studies till 2023, in the Department of Cultural Studies at the 
Radboud University of Nijmegen (Netherlands). After years of research on 
visual media such as film, television and videoclips, she has shifted 
her focus to fashion studies and the creative industries. In 2018-19 
Anneke Smelik was a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced 
Study in Amsterdam. She is co-editor of Critical Studies in Fashion & 
Beauty.

INSTRUCTION FOR THE AUTHORS
We welcome full papers in English with a range length of 3000-4000 
words, footnotes and bibliographical references excluded. It is highly 
recommended to use the template and APA STYLE as a formatting guideline. 
No article processing charge is required.
The deadline for submitting the full paper (saved in .doc or .docx 
format) via the platform is the 31 August 2024. The issue 4 will be 
published in December 2024.
You can download the CFP and submit your proposal here: 
https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/fh/announcement/view/72


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