If the cost of Fashion is community, the price is too high.
In the latest article by Next Gen Assembly 2025, Mel Corchado (
@melcorchado ), reflects, through a retelling of a fashion week party, how Fashion often feels and is experienced - that despite its glamour, it can be a world of distance, despondency, deceit - but it doesn’t have to be.
Mel describes capital F fashion as meaning, “the institutions that manufacture global fashion moments. The conglomerates. The fashion weeks. The schools. The supply chains. Capital F Fashion orbits wealth and power. Scarcity and exclusivity are framed as inevitabilities rather than choices.“
She believes that dismantling glorified hierarchies is key to nourishment in fashion practice and community, which is not at the expense of anyone or our Earth.
Mel shares, “Community can shape life expectancy. But when social capital erodes, institutions weaken and Fashion is no exception.”
She elaborates, “And long before Fashion capitalized itself, communities around the world were practicing relational design. Consider Andean weaving, practiced by Indigenous communities across the Andes and dating back to around 3000 BCE. Women wove – and continue to weave – with alpaca and llama fibers raised within ecological limits; their patterns encoding lineage, region, spirituality, and relationship to land.”
👉 Read Mel’s powerful sentiments on CSF’s blog – link in bio! 🔗
Next Gen Assembly convenes talented students and young professionals in an impactful advocacy programme, led by
@globalfashionagenda and Centre for Sustainable Fashion’s
@fashionvalues programme, supported by Target.
Image credits:
Image 1: Looking Upward by James Lesesne Wells, 1928
Image 2:
Photo of the Young Lords by David Fenton, 1971
Image 3: Photo of the Antwerp Six by Karel Fonteyne, 1986
Image 4: Mantle (detail), Paracas, Peru, 100 BC/AD 200
#CentreForSustainableFashion #CSF #FashionValues #NextGenAssembly #NextGenAssembly2025
