Fashions and Styles on the Move
An ongoing collaboration on decolonization, healing textile practices, and social justice in fashion and design with the University of Namibia and the University of Johannesburg.
The Fashion and Styles department at the IKL of the Academy of Fine Arts, the Department of Humanities and Arts/ Fashion Design at the University of Namibia, and the Department of Fashion Design at the Faculty of Arts, Design, and Architecture at the University of Johannesburg launched a collaboration in spring 2023 under the banner “Decolonizing Fashion Research, Textile Healing, and Social Justice” with the support of the Academy's International Office and the EU program ERASMUS+ International Credit Mobility.
Part 2: Johannesburg 2025
In the fall of 2025, the team from the University of Johannesburg welcomed Elke Gaugele, Sarah Held, Anna Hambira, Constanze Pirch, and David Eisner from the Academy of Fine Arts in South Africa.
Visits to the GALA Archive, which is focused on queer history in southern Africa, and the South African History Archive allowed the team to gain insight into the struggles and counter strategies of various local communities and view artifacts of resistance. During a joint visit to the “Fashion Accounts” exhibition at the Museum Africa, Erica de Greef from the African Fashion Research Institute (AFRI) shared important perspectives on the curatorial work involved in decolonizing fashion and textile collections in South Africa, which is made visible and tangible here through speculative design and critical artistic displays. This continued during a visit to the IMPACT IS A VERB exhibition at the Faculty of Arts, Design, and Architecture at the University of Johannesburg, where many new contacts among creatives and researchers were made.
Again, the artistic and scientific positions of the colleagues impressed with their intensive examination of colonial structures and the violent history of apartheid, as well as with their powerful aesthetics, contributing to the active decolonization of institutional and social spaces as contemporary activist tools. Elke Gaugele and Sarah Held gave a lecture as part of the DESIS lecture series: The Far- Right's Weaponization of Fashion, Style and Homeland in the 4IR on the current FWF research project “Fashion and the Far-Right”.
At the same time, Constanze Pirch and David Eisner joined colleagues from the University of Johannesburg to attend the 2025 Design Education Forum of Southern Africa Conference. There, Africa's emancipation and the continent's detachment from the Eurocentric canon also shaped the academic contributions and the understanding of education and society for future generations.
This shift is also reflected in the conference topics: Design + Digital Disruptions and Technology / Design+ Societal Realities, Impact and Cultural Preservation / Design+ Sustainability and Future-Focused Design linked to Embedded Knowledge, Cultural Heritage Archives, Native Design Languages, Decolonial Design History and Curriculum Development, AI, and Feminist Disruption.
Meanwhile, Anna Hambira gave a follow-up lecture at the UJ based on her digital lecture (WS24) and joined in the feedback round for the final projects of the Fashion Department students. Together, the Fashions and Styles Team visited the impressively curated Apartheid Museum on civil resistance against the apartheid system.
Elke Gaugele, Sarah Held, David Eisner, and Constanze Pirch concluded their visit by visiting the Cultural Forum Austria in Pretoria to discuss future collaboration with the project. After 10 days filled with reflection, exchange, in-depth discussion of joint topics, and planning for further collaboration, the Fashions and Styles Team set off for Windhoek in neighboring Namibia.