FASHION-able. Hacktivism and Engaged Fashion Design

Very inspiring PhD thesis merging theoretical reflection and design practice, a great example of the impact of the participation paradigm in fashion design with a (paradoxical?) focus on the role of the professional designer as an enabler.

Abstract:
This thesis consists of a series of extensive projects which aim to explore a new designer role for fashion. It is a role that experiments with how fashion can be reverse engineered, hacked, tuned and shared among many participants as a form of social activism. This social design practice can be called the hacktivism of fashion. It is an engaged and collective process of enablement, creative resistance and DIY practice, where a community share methods and experiences on how to expand action spaces and develop new forms of craftsmanship. In this practice, the designer engages participants to reform fashion from a phenomenon of dictations and anxiety to a collective experience of empowerment, in other words, to make them become fashion-able.

See the PhD Thesis of Otto von Busch here.