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Welcome to Slow Fashion Season 2026! 

The complexity of textile sustainability is technical and social: The global textile industry is only 0.3% circular (Circle Economy 2024) and apparel waste is 2.3% of Metro Vancouver’s garbage (Storry & McKenzie 2002). There exists a deep need to adjust social attitudes toward and demand for fast fashion. To shift demand and begin cherishing the possibilities of reinvention and renewal, we respond to the seemingly simple question: how can textiles be made more sustainable?

The annual Slow Fashion Season at UBC asks us to think about sustainable fashion. The upcoming January to March 2026 season includes textile workshops, student design challenges, textile and research in sustainable fashion exhibitions and a slow fashion show. The Season is led by the Slow Fashion: Circular Textiles and Sustainable Fibre research cluster, an emerging interdisciplinary group working on the complex problems of sustainability in textiles and clothing. The cluster interweaves research and knowledge-exchange threads, technological and creative experimentation, cultural research with Indigenous and traditional fibre traditions, and methods for reducing, processing and re-using textile waste.

Our knowledge-exchange and mobilization activities are public-facing and present sustainable initiatives and opportunities to share knowledge with the public and other researchers.

Slow Fashion Season kicks off in January and climaxes in March with two gallery exhibitions, the spectacular Slow Fashion Show in the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, a one-day Slow Fashion Lab research symposium, and numerous free maker workshops and challenges for students across Metro Vancouver enabling them to take the lead in creating sustainable fashion. Follow @slowfashionseason for the latest additions to Season events.

Slow Fashion Season is produced by the interdisciplinary Slow Fashion: Circular Textiles, Sustainable Fibre Research Cluster, which is comprised of two dozen artists, designers, engineers, historians, curators, and materials researchers based at UBC and other schools, plus community and industry partners. All are working towards more sustainable, conscientious use and production of clothing. This year’s exhibitions, fashion show, and symposium include cluster research such as a “wood leather” soccer ball from UBC’s BioProducts Institute as well as recycled polyester textile research from UBC Okanagan’s Materials and Manufacturing Research Institute alongside creative costume designs.

Slow Fashion Season 2026 is produced by the UBC Slow Fashion: Circular Textiles, Sustainable Fibre Research Cluster, in partnership with the UBC Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory; UBC Arts & Culture District; UBC SEEDS Sustainability Program; Museum of Anthropology at UBC; Hatch Art Gallery; LaSalle College Vancouver; DreamStill Technologies; and Fashion Revolution Canada. 

 

Upcoming Events

  4. show
    March 12, 2026

    Slow Fashion Show 2026 at the MOA

    The main event of Slow Fashion Season, hosted by the Slow Fashion: Circular Textiles, Sustainable Fibre Research Cluster is here!

    Details

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First Nations land acknowledegement

We acknowledge that the UBC Vancouver campus is situated on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam).

Slow Fashion: Circular Textiles, Sustainable Fibre Research Cluster

Vancouver, British Columbia Canada
E-mail slow.fashion@ubc.ca
Website slowfashion.ubc.ca

Research Excellence Clusters at UBC Vancouver is a joint initiative of the Provost and Vice-President, Academic, UBC Vancouver and the Vice-President, Research and Innovation. Funding support for the clusters is provided by Academic Excellence Funds – UBC Vancouver.

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