Design Futures 2024

Lady in Red
by Astrid Kajerdt, Clint Casano, Ken Simmons, Rosanna Wang, and Yuki Yamamoto.

By 2049, Finland's fashion industry had transformed through automation and eco-friendly textiles. Digital passports improved garment traceability, and a tech-savvy younger generation drove sustainability in education and marketing. Fast fashion was replaced by a circular economy, reducing health issues and raising textile costs. Focusing on local production and recycling, Finland is tackling challenges of climate change, ethical work environment and resource scarcity, contributing globally with recycling technology and digital systems. 

Dinner Party in 2024
by Sara Halásová, Lisa Heikkinen, Laura Jelínková, Henna Kyrö, Rosa Vita Novo, and Filip Zajíc.

Invisible Threads
By Jordan Danae Dornak, Polina Korchagina, Ignacio Guerrero, Hanna Rozmarynowska, Nilius De Franceschi and Alisa Veryukhanova

The Matrix 
By Aili Campbell, Karen Charlot-Wauquier, Lilya Lagerbohm, Rebeka Kovacova, and Yiwei Sang.

To view the video, please be in touch with the student(s) mentioned above. 

EvoTech
By Alexandre Laurencier, Joseph Hallam, Lucía Mantilla de los Ríos, Marcell Grämer, Rochelle Claire Toscano, and Unna Luoma

Under the Lens
By Vitoria Fiorella de Freitas, Mai Bui, Anna Ledovska, Eveline Van Erven, Liza Tinus, and Zofia Alka

Failed Seaweed Utopia
By Tymon Teo Borzecki

At the beginning of the 21st century, as humanity was immersed in the climate panic, it has become clear that the fashion industry has its fair share of blame. But there was hope on the horizon – seaweed farming – a carbon-negative crop with unmatched CO2 absorption potential. A promise for climate change mitigation. 

After centuries of serving as a food source, finding use in the medical and cosmetics sectors, or being used as a fertilizer or fuel, it has made its way into the fashion industry. Following the popularisation of kelp fabric by the supplier SeaCell in the 2020s, their implementation skyrocketed. New biomaterials started replacing conventional fabrics en masse. In 2042 we hit a milestone, 96% of newly produced garments were made from the new materials, with seaweed dominating 80% of production. 

As promised, growing seaweed cultivation brought CO2 emissions down, delaying the effects of climate change, thus providing (the major consumers on the global scale) a sense of accomplishment and security. A common victory over the climate crisis. 

The new materials overtook the runways. A new worldwide trend emerged – replacing your whole wardrobe with the new fabrics as the ultimate stand towards sustainability and ethical fashion. The sustainability promise of the new materials eased the once-present guilt of overconsumption and justified large-scale seaweed farming. The growing population only added to the demand. Claims have been made by the radical skeptical environmentalist groups that we entered a new era of fast seaweed fashion. 

Under the guise of fulfilling sustainability goals, marine areas were at large repurposed for seaweed production. The UN, as the administrative body, introduced tax reductions and subsidies for the industry. While in the Nordics the farms became the new hip hangout spots and are widely embraced as a symbol of the new world; the reality is dramatically different in south-east Asia and the Pacific. There, the farms overtook the whole coastal areas. Short-sighted politicians sacrificed their communities for development loans from the top global players. 

Entire communities are being displaced to make room for industry farming. As the resettled people move to inner land they are now forced to commute for hours to work the farms for unliveable wages and in alarming conditions. The farm workers will never have the chance to wear the fashionable fruits of their labor, instead, we see them in patchworks of “waste” old clothes dumped by the west. The scraps of once high-end brands like Prada, Dior, or Balenciaga, are now worn by the farmers as industrial workwear. 

The marine ecosystems also faced a transformation; coastal biospheres were optimized to grow only plants that are useful for the industry. The effects of this are yet to be fully comprehended. As more and more people start to see through the cracks of the seaweed utopia, climate anxiety creeps back. Have we learned our lesson this time? 

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