10 Fashion innovations you need to know about now
The Global Change Award recognises bold, forward-thinking and kind ideas to solve real-world fashion challenges. Meet the 2026 winners
Tag: Innovation
Africa Textile Talks launches Future Fabrics Student Challenge
Emerging designers, makers and researchers are invited to explore regenerative materials, indigenous knowledge and textile innovation through a new Africa-wide challenge
Africa Textile Talks Day 1: Circular solutions for South Africa’s textile industry
From life cycle assessments to textile recycling and policy reform, Day 1 of Africa Textile Talks 2025 examines how circularity could reshape South Africa’s fashion and textile industry.
How University of Pretoria students learn to craft a better future
At the University of Pretoria, sustainability isn’t just taught — it’s practiced. From bread bags to denim offcuts, students are turning waste into tools for social change. The Department of Consumer and Food Sciences integrates Sustainable Development Goals into its...
Students use mohair to craft sustainable fashion futures
Design Academy of Fashion students explore mohair from fibre to runway in a hands-on project linking craft, sustainability and South Africa’s textile future
The Global Change Award opens to a new round of changemakers
The H&M Foundation is searching for a new group of innovators for its Global Change Award, offering a chance to win €200,000. The annual competition aims to achieve a net-zero textile industry by 2050 by awarding grants to changemakers. Past...
Futuristic Pagan by Chipo Mapondera and Sabina Mutsvati
Futuristic Pagan explores Shona spiritual practices and traditions through virtual reality. The space reflects a Shona dreamscape made up of traditional icons that represent the rituals and meanings related to communicating with the ancestors, and other guides and deities. The...
What lies beneath by Rufaro Magara and Ryan Harvey
Dive into a virtual ocean adventure in “What Lies Beneath”, a captivating prototype VR game that transports players to an underwater world with a pressing mission to save the seas. The game seamlessly blends education with entertainment, empowering the viewer...
Back To by Tarryn Tippens and Larnelle Bakala
Back To is a short-format 360-degree film that explores cultural identity through sustainable design. This is the story of a woman named Yelena who is living in a post-apocalyptic world. Yelena tells us the story of how her life has...
Resurrection by Jackson Chifamba and Joel Chandauka
Join JaXX in an immersive experience of what it’s like to be a textile creative in Harare. Follow him as he goes to the Mbare market to thrift for second-hand clothes that he uses as material for the making of...
Bhero Kulture by Siza Mukwedini and Plot Mhako
For Bhero Kulture, Siza and Plot have created an augmented reality portal into the Mabhero clothing market in Harare, and an immersive zine that allows viewers to engage with various topics affecting the fashion industry in Zimbabwe. The zine invites...
Far and Wide by Larah Fisher and Keith Dliwayo
In this immersive 360 degree virtual reality music video, Larah and Keith have created different spaces of nature, accompanied by soundscapes, that represent different phases of climate change. Original music has been composed for the film experience of wandering through...
What do coffee and seaweed have in common? They outshine cotton in sustainable fashion
Ever considered the carbon footprint of manufacturing your favourite cotton shirt? The average cotton shirt produces 2.1 kilograms of carbon dioxide – but a polyester shirt produces over twice as much (5.5 kilograms). It might come as no surprise that...
4 Circular designers share ideas for radically redesigning our world
In a new video series, What Design Can Do’s Make it Circular Challenge interviews four circular designers about the importance of circular design and the urgent need to radically redesign the world we live in. Never before have we produced,...
Join the What Design Can Do Challenge and use your creativity to forge a circular society
Do you have an idea that contributes to a circular society? What Design Can Do and the Ikea Foundation are inviting creatives from around the world to pitch their circular solutions in the Make it Circular Challenge. The competition seeks...