E=F2
Fashion has long looked to food for insight and direction about how to engage with challenges of sustainability, as seen by the rise of the slow fashion movement, which explicitly builds on ideas first established in the context of food. Yet this one-way relationship where food leads and fashion follows, misses out on strategic synergies between the two sectors. E=F2 is a project exploring the interrelationships between food and fashion in an effort to provide new visions of growth that societies and ecosystems can afford. A collaboration between University of the Arts London and Leicester University, led by Kate Fletcher and Jennifer Smith Maguire, E=F2 recognises that improvements to sustainability in both Food and Fashion sectors (as primary actions of everyday life) are essential for the success of Environmental change and a broader shift towards a sustainability culture – in other words can E=F2?
Looking to extend the notion of ‘craft of use’, E=F2 investigates the practices of eating and dressing through key themes such as adaptability, attentiveness, resourcefulness and notions of time and risk. By examining the interconnections between food-and fashion-related crafts of use, we can better understand how decisions and actions – and potentially change – emerge from skills, knowledge, stories and materials effects. With a specific focus on catalysts of change in the food and fashion sectors, this project looks to inform better decision-making in relation to food, fashion and environmental change across industry practice, consumer behaviour and policy making. Stay tuned for more on E=F2 as the project develops over the next 12 months!