Shaping The Future of Fashion: A Research Companion Book Call for Chapters

About the book

The research companion is a compilation of research chapters on Shaping the Future of Fashion. The book is a celebration of London College of Fashion, UAL as a global authority in fashion education. LCF has been nurturing creative talent for over a century and offers courses in all things fashion, from business to design, fashion curation, and media and communications. With over 60 degrees and 165 short courses, our student and staff community together with our stakeholders continue to reinvent the fashion industry for the future.

Call for chapters

As a research companion, the chapters should be based on robust research, conceptual, empirical or practice-based. The expected variety of contributions by authors and topics will provide rich perspectives on the rapidly evolving fashion system in relation to the four themes: Innovations, Ecosystems, Education and Values.

Readers will gain a diverse, global perspective on the four important themes comprising the book to help challenge and inform their own scholarly thinking and practice. The book offers significant potential for knowledge development and dissemination in shaping the future of fashion. Each chapter will end with future directions, either presented as a research agenda or questions to prompt reader reflection and action.

The intended audience are fashion educators, researchers, practitioners and students with a keen interest in positively evolving the global fashion system and fashion education.

Book structure

The four book sections will contain at least four chapters each that directly relate to the theme, as follows:

Section 1: Innovations (Section editor Bethan Alexander, Reader Fashion Retailing and Marketing)

Technological innovations are driving democratic change to established fashion systems. Advances in digital fashion are challenging our ideas of reality, ethics and sustainability. We encourage chapters in this section to explore emerging and immersive technologies for positive change, be it through sustainable tech infrastructure and platforms that are shifting the fashion ecosystem, advocating for ethical uses of machine learning and AI or the coalescence of fashion physical and digital assets, production and environments.

Section 2: Ecosystems (Section editor Kelly Dearsley, Associate Dean School of Media and Communication)

As the fashion ecosystem continues to flourish and develop, we increasingly must assess our understanding of what it is and how it operates across communities. We expect chapters in this section to challenge and provoke prevailing fashion perspectives and offer new ways of making, doing, communicating, managing, learning with local communities, telling authentic stories and evaluating how identities and communities are understood through fashion’s cultural narratives.

Section 3: Education (Section editor Yu Lun Eve Lin, Curriculum Developer Climate Justice)

Educational practices are creating change, inspiring an impactful future for the entire fashion system. We welcome chapters related to education and pedagogies that explore novel teaching methods and approaches used to inspire critical change within the fashion system, that seek to look at teaching beyond the classroom to examine how fashion affects education and education affects fashion, and that inquire inside-out approaches through enacting industry and cultural change through teaching and learning.

Section 3: Values (Section editor Flavia Loscialpo, Course Leader Cultural and Historical Studies)

We invite chapters that explore ethical values and approaches to fashion, addressing social, racial, and environmental justice while examining contemporary urgencies related to dominant geographies and challenging transnational inequalities. Contributions that focus on cultural change, cultural repair, as well as decolonial and sustainable practices in fashion, are particularly encouraged. We are interested in chapters that highlight innovative ways to care for people and the planet, examine fashion ethics and justice, and propose new frameworks for cultural and environmental resilience. Together, these contributions will advance meaningful dialogues towards more equitable and sustainable futures in fashion.

Author Guidelines

Length and style

• Chapter length maximum 7000 words (including references).

• Use Arial font size 12 and double line spacing.

• Use of headings encouraged to enhance clarity of presentation, headings should be bold and justified against the left margin.

• Any figures or images should be provided as separate digital files, be of high quality (minimum resolution 1500 pixels in JPEG/PDF/ TIFF formats) and a callout should be inserted within the chapter to signify placement. Editable tables should be included within the chapter. If tables, images, or figures are not your work, permission must be obtained before usage from the copyright holder. It is the author’s responsibility to obtain this and provide permission evidence when submitting the chapter (e.g. letter, email etc.). No permission would result in non-inclusion.

• Use of English spelling, punctuation and grammar conventions throughout

• Use of Harvard Referencing style in citations and reference list

Chapter structure

• Author biography (maximum 50 words)

• Author name, affiliation and ORCID identification (if relevant)

• Book section choice (i.e. Innovations, Ecosystems, Education and Values)

• Chapter title (short and concise)

• Abstract (unstructured, max 200 words, must include purpose, literature review, methodology, key findings, implications and 5 keywords)

• Introduction

• Literature review

• Methodology

• Findings/Discussion

• Conclusion, implications, limitations, future directions (i.e. research agenda or questions to prompt reader reflection and action).

• References (HR style, in alphabetical order)

• Acknowledgements (if relevant)

Submission deadline and target publication date:

Authors are to submit chapters to section editors by 30 May 2025.

Section editors

Innovations: Bethan Alexander - b.alexander@fashion.arts.ac.uk

Ecosystems: Kelly Dearsley - k.dearsley@fashion.arts.ac.uk

Education: Yu Lun Eve Lin - e.lin@fashion.arts.ac.uk

Values: Flavia Loscialpo - flavia.loscialpo@arts.ac.uk

All chapters will be subject to a blind peer review process. Chapters that are considered suitable to include in the book will be sent back to authors with revisions before acceptance.

Target publication date Spring 2026.