Successful Circular Fashion Training in Madrid
On 19th October the CREATE project partners gathered in Madrid to present and train each other in different parts of the Educator’s Handbook, a tool designed to include all the elements and information needed by present and, more importantly, future promoters to run the program. The CREATE project’s purpose is to produce learning materials and train people for unlocking the potential of female entrepreneurship to create inclusive employment opportunities for marginalised groups.
The Handbook outlines the procedure to follow to guide the participants in preparing a sustainable capsule prototype.
Valeria Elia, FRAMEWORK’s president, presented the Handbook’s introduction to the manual and to the programme. The CREATE programme is divided into 3 main areas: personal growth, co-design and the production. Valeria dealt with the personal growth part, where the aim is to prepare the participants to be an active part of the CREATE programme. The proposed activities foster inclusion among the participants, supporting them to develop listening and communication skills in order to build a vision for the entire programme.
Sharam Yalda, HumanNation’s founder, held a workshop on Systemic Change through Profound Innovation. Sharam showed us co-sensing techniques such as 3D mapping, stakeholder interviews, sensing journeys and 4D mapping. Then, we had the chance to experience the 4D mapping technique with Oyer Corazónm, who showed us how to gain new insights about systems in society - in this case the fashion industry.
The designer Christangelos Georgandelis and the art director Dimitrios Paraschos from The Nest/SOFFA illustrated incredibly innovative techniques on zero-waste fashion. They also showed us how to deal with people with different cultural backgrounds, making us understand how this is reflected in fashion and designs.
Mikkel Kofod Nørgård, the coordinator of WFTO-Europe, presented the mission-led business model to our partners. He conveyed a point long promoted by the Fair Trade movement, namely that human rights and environmental sustainability must be integral parts of business conduct. In the experience of the WFTO’s global network of Fair Trade enterprises, mission-led business models remain the ideal approach to do this in a viable manner, and Mikkel shared some concrete examples illustrating both the why and the how within the context of the CREATE project.
On the WLY side, Aloisia Åkerman Sandberg presented us some basic marketing notions. She pointed out that since it is a constantly changing industry and that marketing is a constantly evolving subject, these should serve as a starting point for exploring one’s own marketing approach. The important thing, Aloisia stressed, is to test it out, evaluate and then modify the approach according to what is found to be working. This way, as presented in our handbook, users of the CREATE tools will gain a practical understanding of how to define their (professional) identity and how to target and interact with their customers.
The Madrid training and meetings also served to kick off the creation of the Educational Toolkit. This Toolkit accompanies the Educator’s Handbook with frameworks for training sessions, exercises and other ways to introduce and build the skills needed for utilising the designing and production of a sustainable capsule collection for empowering marginalised women and boosting their employment opportunities. Both publications will be hosted under the Project Results section of this website and freely available for any interested parties.
