Pioneers share their vision for 2025
Image courtesy of Spur Magazine
The following article was originally published in the February issue of SPUR magazine in my Tomorrow column. These are written by myself 2 months prior as my Tomorrow Column is exclusively in print and needs time, something that always encourages me to work on topics that are not hype.
2025's fashion landscape will be shaped by diverse perspectives from design, sustainability, fashion, technology, and innovation. Foresight is about attentive listening and considering varied narratives, as powerful visions often arise from individual conversations or quotes.
For my Spur Column Tomorrow I've asked pioneers to share their insights and visions for 2025 in a 2-part series. Join us as we explore a mosaic of pioneering voices guiding the future of fashion and innovation.
In part 1, we delve into Regeneration through ethical practices, supply chain transformations, circularity, nature-first technologies, fashion education, activism, and the strategic role of colour and care in supporting our living world. Next month, we will focus on digital transformation.
Regeneration as the ethical social side of fashion by Jo Maiden- Founder and CEO of SOKO Kenya
The fashion industry in 2025 will continue to see a growing emphasis on regenerative materials and sustainable fabrics, with more brands considering the full lifecycle of clothing, from production to end-of-life. While this progress is promising, there’s still a critical need to bring more focus to the social side of fashion specifically, the well-being and rights of the people who make our clothes. I hope to see a stronger shift towards these conversations in the coming year, with more brands prioritizing fair treatment and ethical practices alongside environmental sustainability."
On reinventing the fashion paradigm by Saher Sidhom - FRSA, Founder + CEO of Hackmasters
“The current fashion supply chain cannot continue as it is. It is unfathomable that a typical white shirt crosses five countries before being purchased, especially in the world we live in, and the one we are heading towards. Whether driven by sustainability concerns, geopolitical risks, or new generations of consumers reshaping the shopping paradigm, the very way fashion brands source materials is due for inevitable reinvention. In the near future, we will see much more diversification of sourcing to accommodate alternative raw materials, and end-to-end transparency will be crucial to meet increasingly complex regulations. Lastly, the evolving consumer appetite for fashion will demand hyper-adaptive supply and production networks, enhancing relevance and even mass personalisation.
On circularity, bio-engineering, inclusivity and a nature first approach by Paul Foulkes-Arellano - Founder of Circuthon and co-author of “Materials & Sustainability”
The most innovative businesses will shape the fashion landscape in 2025, a year driven by circularity, technology, inclusivity, and a focus on a nature-first approach. Bioengineering can begin to play a significant role in developing innovative materials, personalized manufacturing, and sustainable dyeing/textile printing. I’m putting my faith in bioengineering, which will be present in 2025, but won’t truly flourish until 2030. What will bioengineering bring to the fashion landscape?
Creating Biological Materials: Creative scientists can develop new, biomimetic materials inspired by natural organisms. Not just biosynthetics inspired by spider silk and bacterial cellulose, but directly using fungi and fermentation. These materials can offer unique properties like strength, durability, and biodegradability
Personalized Manufacturing: Bioengineering can enable the production of customized garments based on individual measurements and preferences, reducing waste and improving fit. This is already happening in footwear – garments will follow.
Unimaginable designs: Bioengineering can open up design possibilities for designers, Patterns will no longer be cut. The whole way is developing a new garment will require a greater understanding of tailoring, and less understanding of software packages. This is true for both footwear and apparel.
On Fashion Education’s turning point by Alice Wilby - Lecturer, Activist and Consultant, working in sustainable fashion and climate justice.
Many of us fashion industry activists led calls in 2019 for Fashion to take its climate responsibility seriously. 2025 looks like the year fashion education will deliver, following industry major players like Patagonia and Gucci centring regenerative farming, renewable energy and sustainable materials. Nature systems thinking is now being reflected in fashion education.
Both UK universities I teach at, UCA and UAL, are embedding a nature led practice into a variety of BA and MA courses. Inspired by leading industry practices and templates including Fibre Shed, Purpose Disruptors and ReMakeOurWorld, we are seeing everything from natural plant dye gardens grown, so that textile students can grow, tend and work with plant dyes, to narratives of regeneration, decolonisation and climate justice embedded in fashion image making and producing courses. And modules that centre the voices and demands of garment workers as clients and shareholders. This has grown from a few of us independent sustainability lecturers sharing our practice, to the embedding of new curriculum across schools. 2025 will be Nature’s year to shine in fashion education.
On healing the living world, colour and care as a business imperative by Laura Perryman - Trend, CMF & Colour Consultant, Founder of Colour of Saying, Author of The Colour Bible
I envision 2025 as a time when natural, cultural, and industrial ecosystems are rejuvenated in harmony with our changing global environment. The living world, with its remarkable ability to transform and adapt, calls us to explore the delicate balance between humanity and nature. It is a time to adopt 'care' as a strategic approach to business. Finding alternatives to synthetic materials will be crucial. We must seek opportunities and forge strategic alliances with local sources of colour and materials, agricultural resources, and historical knowledge. Let us embrace regenerative practices that enhance soil fertility and biodiversity while adopting a dynamic approach to materials, fashion, and colour. When we do this colour will be remedial and healing, pushing stereotypical colours into new realms due to unusual pigments, using waste or new biological dyes. Nuances are bright, luminous on one hand, but durable, dark and modified on the other, breaking down old codes of use for a future that’s in transition.
Parting Thoughts
Now you see that fashion in 2025 stands at the precipice of transformation. As environmental and social concerns take centre stage, at the same time we are seeing big corporations pulling back on their climate commitments. Now is not the time to give up on our belief in Fashion as a force for change. Now is the time to double down on our efforts, fostering a future where circularity, inclusivity, and care for the planet can be integral to the fashion landscape. We are seeing an acceleration of extreme climate events. With key players understanding we need change, 2025 will bear witness to a remarkable tension between an old system and evolution. It is the resilience created from this tension that will ultimately redefine the very essence of fashion as we know it.
By Geraldine Wharry
