The Future of Sustainable Fashion event took place on Monday, April 14, 2025, at the MOMus - Museum of Modern Art in Thessaloniki, Greece. The workshop was implemented surrounded by the relative with the subject exhibition Collective Threads: Anna Andreeva at the Red Rose Silk Factory. This initiative was implemented by Helenos Consulting, a partner of the Eye of Europe Project, and aimed at engaging domain professionals, including foresight and fashion experts.

What if fashion wasn’t just about what you wear—but about how you live, what you value, and where we’re all headed? That was the guiding question behind Future of Sustainable Fashion, an Eye of Europe pilot workshop hosted by Helenos Consulting on January 20, 2025, at Thessaloniki’s MOMus – Museum of Modern Art. Framed by the evocative Collective Threads exhibition by Anna Andreeva , the event invited participants to see fashion not just as style, but as a lens into the future—one that reflects our social values, ethical priorities, and growing environmental urgency. Through imagination and collaboration, citizens explored what the future of fashion might look like—and what it might reveal about the future of society itself.

From favorite Sweaters & Emotions to Fashion time travel!
The workshop kicked off with something disarmingly simple: “Draw your favourite fashion item”. But the answers ran deep. Whether it was a jacket from a loved one or a vintage find, the stories converged in common values: comfort, connection, ethics, culture, and identity. Clearly, fashion isn't just about looking good—it’s a mirror for our values and our times.
After getting to know each other better, the five participant groups dived into fashion’s evolution by completing a three-horizon timeline—mapping the past, present, and future of the industry. They reflected on the past as an era of craftsmanship and durability, when clothing was high-quality, handmade, and often a marker of social status. The present, they noted, sends mixed signals: while fashion today allows for greater self-expression and accessibility, it also fuels overconsumption, environmental harm, and rising interest in second-hand markets and eco-conscious alternatives. Looking to the future, participants expressed hope in a more sustainable, circular fashion economy, but voiced concerns about affordability of emerging innovations like smart textiles and the safety of personal data increasingly tied to wearable tech.

Imagine your future- design your clothes.
Using a card-based game and group creativity, citizens constructed new worlds. Sometimes dystopias, other times regenerative and closer to nature, groups marched with designing fashion items that would help them adapt (or at specific cases even survive) in these imaginary futures. The results revealed bigger concerns of participants: the environmental crises and their implications on health and on humankind survival, safety, and inclusivity.
Across artefacts, fashion transformed from mere aesthetics into something far more powerful: a survival and adaptability tool, a connector of people and nature. Technology showed up everywhere—smart fabrics, wearable sensors, nanotech—yet always framed by a strong desire to keep things human, ethical, and grounded.

Writing a Future’s Guide
At the heart of the workshop was the Fashion Futuring Wheel—a system-thinking roadmap that connected fashion to education, politics, ESG, design, communication, and more. Citizens called for green transition in manufacturing and distribution and inclusive design. They imagined a world where transparency and safety of personal data is the norm, where AI is integrated in our lives with respect to human rights, and where fashion educates as much as it beautifies.

More Than Fabric—A Force for the Future
This workshop wasn’t just a creative exercise—it was a glimpse of fashion’s potential as a tool for resilience, identity, and systemic change. In a time of climate anxiety and digital overload, citizens showed that they’re not only ready to adapt, but to actively participate in systemic changes —with empathy, ingenuity, and vision.

See the analytical results of the workshop here.
 

The Future of Sustainable Fashion event took place on Monday, January 20, 2025, at the MOMus - Museum of Modern Art in Thessaloniki, Greece. The workshop was implemented surrounded by the relative with the subject exhibition Collective Threads: Anna Andreeva at the Red Rose Silk Factory. This initiative was implemented by Helenos Consulting, a partner of the Eye of Europe Project, and aimed to engage local citizens.

As a partner of the Eye of Europe Project, Helenos will implement its first pilot on Fashion Futuring, investigating potential links among objects, fiction, culture, and systems to understand how the values of the systems/societies can shape the future of fashion.

The event was realized on 20th of January, 2025 at MOMus- Museum of Modern Art, Thessaloniki, Greece.

Context

Have you ever wondered why people in Ancient Egypt (3100-30 BCE) wore hair wigs? Or why samurai have been associated with kimonos, while feminine full skirts are linked with the post-war America of the ‘50s? There are numerous examples of fashion items that represent specific periods and places. But what does that signify? In ancient Egypt, men wearing hair wigs was considered an honor and a symbol of equalization to women, as women were regarded as wise and sacred.  

Similarly, in Tokugawa Japan (1603 – 1868), when samurai lived, clothing indicated one’s rank and role within the highly structured feudal society, while in post-war America, fashion was influenced by the idealized image of the suburban family, emphasizing domesticity and traditional gender roles. The common space of all three examples is that - throughout the centuries - fashion has served people and societies as a way of self-expression, a sign of social status, also revealing the prevailing social norms and beliefs. 

Today, our highly complex and uncertain world requires strategic tools that will help us create new sustainable development trajectories. Fashion not only reveals unique and collective identities, norms, and ethics but is also associated with environmental issues. It is one of the largest pollutant industries, prompting a shift in the way we produce and consume fashion items. How might the climate crisis change our attitudes, and how does this impact the fashion industry? 

What is Fashion Futuring?

Fashion Futuring is an innovative approach that investigates potential links among objects, fiction, culture, and systems to understand how the values of the systems/societies can shape the future of fashion. It suggests a significant shift in the future of fashion approach, moving away from short-term trends and financial forecasting as primary factors for fashion production, towards sustainable, more humane means of fashion producing and consuming. 

The pilot

The upcoming pilot at the beginning of the next year is targeted towards regional stakeholders in Greece, such as citizens, CCI regional firms, and experts from academia and market and regional policy-makers. The workshop consists of a 7-stage methodology based on Garcia (2023), where participants will be encouraged to share their personal experiences and values, co-create a fictional future, and work together to design a fictional fashion item based on this future. The workshop will utilize various foresight methods, primarily core design, what-if scenario development, and strategic thinking.

In the spring of 2025, Helenos Consulting will organize a second pilot on the same topic, focussing on a different audience of international and national Fashion, Textile, and foresight experts, to grasp a holistic image of the topic. 

This workshop will be implemented in Greek with citizens and other local stakeholders from Thessaloniki.

Project Futures Garden is warmly inviting you to engage with two fictional artifacts that showcase thought provoking future scenarios regarding “Dealing with future selves” and “Extending human perception to new scales”.
Join us for an immersive and interactive experience!

Artifacts:

INWARDS
The film Inwards invites us to explore new practices and technologies that enhance self-reflection and sharing of emotions, thus helping shape our choices in life and nurture a renewed sense of togetherness.

>> Watch the teaser for Inwards

SYMBIOTIC
The film Symbio tic invites us to explore new ways of inhabiting the perception of other intelligent beings, to embody their experience, their sensory world, their “umwelt” – what they “feel” and how they “think”.

>> Watch the teaser for Symbiotic

Who Should Attend? 

• EU citizens interested in reflecting on and discussing future fictional artifacts, thus fostering new ideas and attitudes that may reshape their present lives and their future
• Policymakers looking for fresh perspectives derived from future scenarios
• Futurists, designers, and behavioral scientists exploring the power of citizen engagement in molding future imaginaries