E/Spaces in Fashion

We are pleased to announce the second Fashion Studies Network Symposium, hosted by the Masters of Fashion program at Toronto Metropolitan University. The symposium will take place on Thursday, May 28th and Friday, May 29th, 2026.

The field of fashion is composed of numerous spaces—physical and digital spaces; making, consuming and performing spaces; neocolonial and decolonial spaces. The history of fashion is informed by space and its politics: fashion cities, sacrifice zones, extraction geographies, centres and peripheries. Being in fashion is to have fashion impose itself on bodies and spaces through issues of access and acceptance. However, fashion is also a tool to drive change, assert non-normative ideas, symbolize rebellion, and dress resistance. Through these acts, fashion creates various spaces and is instrumental in their improvement.

For this bilingual graduate symposium, we have welcomed submissions in both English and French that explore these “E/Spaces in Fashion.” This symposium will inspire the next student-led special issue of Fashion Studies, scheduled for publication in June, 2027.

Stay tuned, as attendee registration will be opening soon!

School of Fashion, Toronto Metropolitan University

40 Gould St, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3

• Room / Salle : Fashion Board Room, Kerr Hall South 148

• Coffee, tea, and light refreshments provided. / Café, thé et rafraîchissements offerts.

• Room / Salle : MA Studio

• Joseph Medgalia, Toronto Metropolitan University

There are a number of options in the area. / Il y a de nombreuses options dans le coin.

Panel 5 / Atelier 5 - Forward Thinking? Decoding Tech in Fashion Spaces / Une Vision avant-gardiste ? Décrypter la technologie dans les espaces dédiés à la mode

(This panel will be presented in person and online via Zoom / Cet atelier sera présenté en personne et en ligne via Zoom)

Chair / Présidence : Sophia Zavarella, Toronto Metropolitan University

Room 2 / Salle 2 : MA Studio

• Trends and Digital Humanities: New Pathways for Fashion through Artificial Intelligence and 3D Simulation (online) - Macivaldo Santos, Universidade Estadual de Santa Catarina

• Advertising as Afrofuturism: Imagining Fashion Marketing through AI - Dominique Norman, Marymount Manhattan College and Fashion Institute of Technology

Can Fashion Exist Without Touch? - Led by Nithikul Nimkulrat, OCAD University, Hosted by Fashion Arts Toronto

• Location / Lieu : 251 Queens Quay East, 10th Floor

• As fashion and other art and design disciplines expand into digital and hybrid environments, they increasingly detach from one of their most fundamental conditions: touch. What remains of fashion when tactility is simulated, deferred, or absent?

  This provocation interrogates the sensory foundations of fashion by examining the growing gap between embodied material experience and its digital translations. It asks how making—through handling, resistance, and negotiation with materials—generates forms of knowledge that cannot be fully captured by visual or computational systems. Rather than assuming digital expansion as enhancement, the provocation questions whether it produces a sensory deficit. Can fashion be meaningfully experienced without touch, or does the loss of tactility require new ways of thinking, making, and knowing?

• Location / Lieu : 251 Queens Quay East, 10th Floor, Fashion Arts Toronto

• Free entry for symposium attendees, cash bar.

• Special rate for symposium participants to attend Fashion Arts Toronto fashion shows.

Studio Visit / Visite de studio (materials fee $20 per person)

Marbled Faces, Community Spaces

• Sabine Spare, Chroma Colour Textiles Studio

• Location / Lieu : 52 St Lawrence St. #317, Toronto

Workshop / Atelier (no cost)

From Draft to Publication: A Guide to Publishing in Academic Journals (Workshop + Q&A)

• Carlea Blight, Toronto Metropolitan University and York University

• Room 2 / Salle 2 : MA Studio

Site Visit / Visite de site (no cost)

A Garden of Colour & Thread

• Rachel MacHenry, School of Fashion TMU

• Location / Lieu : 245 Church St., Toronto (Rooftop)

Screening / Visionnement (suggested donation)

Re.Stance Collective Film Screenings: Entangled Temporality — A Love Letter to Gaia

• Location / Lieu : The Catalyst, 80 Gould Street, Toronto, ON

There are a number of options in the area. / Il y a de nombreuses options dans le coin.

Room / Salle : Fashion Board Room, Kerr Hall South 148

• Room / Salle : MA Studio

• dr. nigel lezama, School of Fashion, TMU

Location / Lieu : The Combine - 225 Wellington St. West, Toronto, ON

Special rate for symposium participants.

Location / Lieu : 55 Centre Ave, Toronto, ON

Registration Fee of $5.00 for panels and materials fee of $40.00 for workshop.

• Panel 1: Ancestral Threads (1:00 - 1:45 PM)

• Panel 2: Living Systems (1:45 - 2:30 PM)

• Panel 3: Future Fabrics (2:30 - 3:15 PM)

• Wet Felting Basics (1:00 - 4:00 PM)

Past Events

About the Symposium

The Fashion Studies Network (FSN) is a collaborative scholarly community focused on sharing innovative research, methodologies, and practices in the field of fashion. Founded in 2023 and led by the School of Fashion at Parsons School of Design – the New School and the Masters of Fashion program at Toronto Metropolitan University, this network is focused on developing connections between fashion-focused New York City and Toronto graduate students, community members, and educational- and cultural-centered institutions. A bi-annual symposium hosted by FSN institutional members is a key goal of the network, resulting in an evolving creative space where innovative research can be shared, conversations can be had, and new connections between communities can be made.

The fashion system's processes of production, circulation, consumption, and expulsion weave stories begging to be told and important lessons to be learned. While the worst cases expose the domination and exploitation prevalent within the industry, there are also inspiring instances of sustainability, equity, and decolonization gaining visibility and momentum as we strive to make fashion a safer and more accessible creative space. Textiles and the garments they construct serve as the physical manifestation of diverse communities' histories, communities, and politics, working to both expose and disrupt oppressive dominant ideologies and provide a means of embodied self-expression. Our upcoming graduate symposium "Unravelling Fashion Narratives" will feature a wide range of panelists investigating fashion from all angles. Alternative fashion narratives will be explored through the lenses of curatorial, material culture, fashion, and performance studies; as well as exhibited through the creations of dyers, weavers, and other makers in the field of fashion.

Potential topics include, but are by no means limited to:

• Critiquing and challenging dominant narratives in fashion

• Archival collections’, museums’ and curatorial stories

• Decolonial perspectives in design and representation

• Fashion reality vs. fantasy

• Stories concealed and revealed by dress

• Global dress and textile stories

• Inclusion and accessibility in fashion and dress practices

• Sustainability in micro and macro practices

• Threads of identity and dress

• Fashion studies as an interdisciplinary field

• Materiality

• Personal and political narratives in dress

• Dress history

We welcomed graduate students, makers, and artists from various backgrounds submitted to the field of Fashion Studies. Priority was given to students at institutions affiliated with the network.