Global Fashion Agenda has launched the search for seven leading Next Gen voices in the fashion industry to participate in the Next Gen Assembly, in collaboration with its Academy Partners, London College of Fashion’s (LCF) Centre for Sustainable Fashion (CSF) via the Fashion Values Programme, and Eyes on Talents.
Dominant economic practices in fashion are contributing to the exploitation and degradation of people and nature, perpetuating inequality and contributing to the climate emergency. You’re invited to rethink how we define value in the fashion economy, under this year’s focus on ‘How Can Fashion Value Economies of Wellbeing?’
You’re invited to apply to the Next Gen Assembly 2024 – led by Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) and supported by Fashion Values and Eyes on Talents. The selected candidates that form the Next Gen Assembly 2024 will receive a Summit ticket, travel, and accommodation for Global Fashion Summit: Copenhagen Edition 2024. Learn more about the Next Gen Assembly here.
The Next Gen Assembly convenes talented students and young professionals in an impactful advocacy programme, enabling the next generation to gain access to the industry, have their voices heard, and ideas nurtured.
As a member of the Next Gen Assembly 2024, you will understand that personal, planetary, and societal wellbeing is being impaired by economic thinking that only looks at growth in GDP terms. You will advocate for alternative fashion practices that value more than financial gain, in a more than human world. Your purpose will be to understand, promote, and communicate alternative economic values and models for the fashion system that nurture wellbeing for people and nature first.
GFA Academy and CSF will support seven selected candidates, alongside the emergent creative winner of the Fashion Values Challenge, in developing skills to foster their development as sustainability changemakers. Through a year-long collaborative programme, the Next Gen Assembly will complete the Fashion Values: Economy course, participate in a series of online workshops, deliver a Masterclass event, and attend Global Fashion Summit: Copenhagen Edition 2024.
In the weeks preceding the Global Fashion Summit, the Next Gen Assembly will focus on community building and sharing aspirations, to co-create goals and methodologies for achieving change. This will lead to an exploration of how to be successful advocates for the fashion community and thoroughly prepare them for their roles at Global Fashion Summit 2024 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Participants will play an integral role at the Global Fashion Summit. Each individual will be assigned an on-site industry buddy and be meaningfully involved in activities and networking opportunities throughout the Summit. The chosen candidates can expect to interact with content from industry leaders, policymakers, changemakers, and thinkers.
Following the Summit, the Next Gen Assembly will continue to work together, advocating for a prosperous[1] fashion system, responding to opportunities to amplify Next Gen voices and contributing to changemaking activities.
“Our fashion habits are difficult to shift. The infrastructures of consumerist economies are deep rooted. It is going to take ingenuity, commitment and imagination to reframe the fashion system. But it is already happening.” – Professor Dilys Williams, Director of Centre for Sustainable Fashion and Professor of Fashion Design for Sustainability
Deadline for Application is 22 January, 2024.
[1] Prosperity is the state of thriving and an indicator of quality of life. While in purely economic terms, prosperity tends to be equalled with wealth, it is increasingly recognised that economic prosperity is an insufficient metric to reflect deeper dimensions of prosperity, such as decent and fulfilling work, health, life satisfaction, and well-being.
This article is a contribution from Jaime Villaverde, Associate Professor of Policital Science at the Universidad Pontifica Comillas and Public Affairs Consultant at Kreab Spain.
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