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In the fashion industry, the circular economy (CE) may be mobilised for many agendas, from a superficial approach to reducing waste and using recycled materials to a more radical proposition for societal transformation towards sustainable production and consumption. For fashion educators, the CE is, therefore, an important new facet of sustainability education and one that must be approached with critical nuance, as the representation of the CE in the media have the potential to frame students' understanding. To evaluate the discourse created around fashion and the CE in the mainstream media, 476 published articles were analysed between 2016 and 2020. The findings revealed that the media sidelined cultural perspectives of CE while promoting its technical dimension. The concluding part of this paper makes suggestions on how best to engage students in the CE conversation with a critical approach that considers pressing consumption issues in fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past 15 years, the Sri Lankan apparel industry has been upgrading from apparel assembly to providing design and product development services. The country's fashion education developed in response to the industry's need for design professionals. The purpose of this study is to explore how fashion designer competencies are developed within Sri Lanka. This study adopts a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews conducted with 28 fashion and product development professionals, selected through purposive sampling. The development of fashion designer competencies within SL in this context are analysed and discussed. The study proposes a 'fashion education ecosystem' that has emerged from the nexus between formal fashion education and training and professional development within the industry, supporting the upgrading of the industry through the enhancement of designer skills. Sri Lanka, as a small country that depends heavily on the apparel industry for employment and economic development, provides a model for other developing countries seeking industrial upgrading from apparel assembly to design and product development services through the fashion education ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on the findings of a study investigating creative risktaking behaviours of the commencing university students enrolled in three units across three disciplines: Interactive and Visual Design, Fashion Design, and Film, Screen and Animation. The study employs an action research methodology in order to help students develop confidence and competence in creative risk‐taking. Upon analysis from relevant literature three key provisions for the study are proposed, being: P1 An open and playful learning environment that encourages sharing and challenging multiple perspectives; P2 An adequate period of time for students to develop and revise creative concepts; and P3 Opportunities to assess their own performance in developing creative risk‐taking capacities. The study draws on the students' written self‐reflections to identify the key challenges and opportunities in encouraging creative risk‐taking among first year students, which are challenges of collaboration; creative resilience and self‐efficacy; and balancing creativity with technical competency. The article suggests several ways that educators can encourage students to take creative risks within higher education in preparation for careers in the creative industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Anthropocene describes our current geological era, in which human activity has grown to become a planetary force. Interest in "sustainable fashion" reflects the necessity to address the social and environmental ills of fashion. Yet thinking on sustainable fashion remains chiefly industry and user-focused, examining narrow questions regarding how industry may shift practices, or how users may engage with fashion differently—hence only tacitly positioned within the context of the Anthropocene. Synthesizing scholarly and industry perspectives, this article establishes two positions on sustainable fashion, and aligns these with the philosophical positions of humanity's future in the Anthropocene, adopting ethicist Clive Hamilton's nomenclature. First, fashion's Prometheans, the techno-optimists, propose a future in which cleaner technologies can lead to the gradual evolution of a better industry. In contrast, fashion's Soterians take a cautionary approach, and seek to unbind fashion from the unsustainable growth imperative of capitalism itself. Under these two, the definition of "sustainable fashion" may differ, but, critically, their dialogue will shape the direction of fashion. Together, their actions create a "fashion futuring," a dynamic process of negotiation between what I term the "taming" and the "rewilding" of fashion, within a world of our own making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the urgency around the environmental impact of fashion production grows, biotechnologies that engineer microbes and other biological organisms such as plants offer cleaner, greener processes and entirely new products. Bacteria and yeasts may be engineered to colour fabric, generate synthetic fibre precursors, and produce enzymes used to break down and convert waste. Biotechnology can also present as a continuation of humanity's mastery over the natural world. This article explores how biotechnology may offer fashion – as both industry and culture – alternative ways of forming relationships with the natural world, offering a range of propositions for the role of biotechnology in fashion practice. The first theme, 'taming', examines how biotechnology offers alternatives that control and reduce environmental impacts within existing industry norms. Taming includes synthetic biology and microbial biotechnology to develop processes for silk and leather alternatives, and the replacement of existing fossil-fuel based fibres with bio-based equivalents. The second theme, 'rewilding', focuses on the role biotechnology may play in local, decentralised fashion production existing outside of industry control, within the community. Last, 'speculating' shows the role biotechnology may play in imagining and enacting alternative views of the living world in which the human and more-than-human entangle to form new kinships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the cultural geography of fashion cities, focusing on independent fashion designers' relationships with their city. Through discussing the Australian city of Brisbane and its place within the hierarchy of fashion cities, we examine the position of modern yet peripheral locations that have what we term an 'elusive' fashion identity. The discussion highlights the complexities that make a city a fashion city, specifically the interplay between industry, culture, retail and design, commonly identified as fundamental elements in the construction or transformation of fashion cities. The paper unravels the dynamics and discourses that have contributed to the contemporary conceptualisation of the fashion city; it evaluates the way in which local independent fashion designers (IFDs) can contribute to a reorientation of thinking about cities and their fashion; and it gauges how IFDs sustain a local fashion identity within cities that do not present the commonly recognised characteristics of a fashion city such as infrastructures. We argue that IFDs in peripheral cities have a very different relationship with their city than do IFDs in so-called fashion cities. By examining this relationship, and Brisbane's modestly placed position on fashion cities' hierarchy, we propose that, except for the traditional fashion centres, other cities are in a constant state of flux, arguing that the concept of the fashion city itself is elusive. We propose that as cities experience fashion narratives that ebb and flow, they may present multiple characteristics that make them unique at a particular moment, thus they are 'elusive' fashion cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A cherished Sri Lankan tradition comprising tales from different regions, stories about Kuweni recount how Prince Vijaya from North India took power in Sri Lanka with the help of Kuweni, a native young woman. This study introduces a qualitative thematic metaphorical approach to analyze Kuweni's legend. The findings presented in "Kuweni's Folklore Characteristics Onion" offer a layered analysis that demonstrates the significance of symbols and metaphors in folklore, offering valuable insights to various creative disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article establishes a new basis for examining the participation, mobilisation and impact of investors at a time when market-based activism for social change is rising in prominence. Existing terminology describing the expression of political values through investment decisions lacks conceptual clarity. Political participation by shareholders and other investors is variously described as shareholder activism or socially responsible investment, and currently conceptualised under the banner of political consumerism. However, this term fails to capture the unique political role and diverse actions of investors. We put forward 'political investorism' as a cohering term for investment-based political participation to remedy existing conceptual confusion, to distinguish between investors and consumers as political actors and to set an agenda for the future study of market-based activism. This article defines and develops the concept of political investorism, drawing upon illustrative cases from Australia to identify hallmarks, actors and tactics of this form of political participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Recycling of wool/polyester fabrics for a circular economy. • Selective enzymatic degradation of wool fibres from wool/polyester blended fabrics. • Recovery of polyester fibres suitable for manufacture of new products. Textile waste presents a serious environmental problem with only a small fraction of products from the fashion industry collected and re-used or recycled. The problem is exacerbated in the case of post-consumer waste by the mixture of different natural and synthetic fibres in blended textiles. The separation of mixed fibre waste, where garments are often multicomponent, presents a major recycling problem as fibres must be separated to single components to enable effective recycling. This work investigates the selective digestion of wool fibres from wool/polyester blended fabrics using an enzymatic approach. Complete degradation of wool fibres was achieved by application of a keratinase in a two-step process with addition of reducing agent and undigested polyester fibres were recovered. Electron microscopy showed complete breakdown of the natural fibres in the fabric blends, while spectroscopic and mechanical analysis of the recovered synthetic fibres confirmed that the enzymatic treatment had no significant impact on the properties of the polyester compared to virgin samples. The polyester fibres are therefore suitable to be recycled to polyester yarn and re-used in the manufacture of new garments or other products. The nutrient rich keratin hydrolysate could be used in microbial growth media or incorporated into bio-fertilisers or animal feed, contributing to the development of the circular economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Potassium-ion capacitor (KICs) is an emerging technology that can potentially combines the virtue of high power capability of supercapacitors and high energy density of batteries. Herein, we have scientifically transformed blue denim textile waste into two different forms of nanocarbons to assemble dual carbon potassium-ion hybrid capacitor (KIHC). The unique composition of indigo and sulphur dyes in blue jeans enables to produce multi-heteroatom (nitrogen, sulphur and oxygen) doped hard carbon (MHC) with large interlayer spacing (0.41 nm) in a single step. An in-situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis reveal that the charge stored in disordered and large interlayer spaced graphitic structure enable fast kinetics for efficient potassium-ion transportation. Coupling with an activated carbon foam (ACF)-based cathode, a full cell of potassium-ion capacitor successfully delivers a high energy density of 181 Wh kg−1 at 70.4 W kg−1 and 61.8 Wh kg−1 at 4000 W kg−1, as well as an long lifespan of 5000 cycles with over 89% of capacity retention. These performance statistics match or exceed state-of-the-art values for KIHCs, providing novel strategy to develop dual carbon ion capacitors with high energy and high power capabilities. The concept of transformation of textile waste into value added materials as electrodes in potassium ion capacitors. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]