How fashion education can help create a more inclusive society.
 
Despite the hard-earned successes of body positive, antiracist, and disability rights activists calling for diverse representation, the fashion industry has been slow to evolve. In Fashion Education: The Systemic Revolution, fashion educators share their experiences navigating, resisting, and transforming the narrow beauty and body ideals that have defined pedagogy within the discipline. The volume examines their challenges and successes, as well as practical strategies for countering narrow fashion education curricula. Educators share ways to radically redesign courses and decenter white supremacy, fatphobia, ableism, transphobia, and misogyny. Together, the chapters illuminate the critical role of fashion education in systematically eliminating body oppression and building a more inclusive profession.

Ben Barry is dean of the School of Fashion at the New School’s Parsons School of Design. Deborah A. Christel is cofounder of Kade & Vos and head of design and product development at Panty Drop, both fat-positive and size-inclusive fashion companies.