Empowering future female innovators of the sustainable fashion industry through inspiration, skills and networks

We are pleased to announce our active involvement as a lab in shemakes, an important two-year European-Union-funded project under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

The goal of shemakes is to empower future female innovators of the sustainable fashion industry through inspiration, skills and networks. More specifically, working as a community, shemakes provides innovative learning paths for girls and women of various ages, and concrete business support and connections to assist female entrepreneurs. A final element is the inspiration provided by the network’s advisors, gurus and ambassadors.

This is a three-pronged approach because we recognize that there is no single, magic formula and we need to operate on multiple planes to break down systemic gender constructs that inhibit many women’s ability to get ahead in the industry.

Shemakes Goal and Method

Shemakes Labs

Part of the solution is to create opportunities and environments that enable women to move into roles of increasing power. This connects directly to the essential role of what this project calls “labs”, which are physical spaces for textile experimentation. These might be fablabs, incubators, research institutes, cultural associations or co-working spaces. In these safe spaces, we develop and test new ideas, carry out learning modules, hold workshops addressing gender issues or female

Our Contribution

Spreading Shemakes Consortium and our knowledge we seek to create learning paths aimed at 8-18+ year old girls as a way to develop their tech skills and engage with the local community. The activities will show them how they can intervene creating more paradigms in the fashion area.

Create a core Innovative research and Investigation team with local designers, universities & industry leaders to explore and experiment bridging digital fabrication, biology, textile and materials research.

Engage with the local community showing them how they can build a new business around sustainable fashion.

Partnership

Shemakes.eu is a two-year European-Union funded initiative (Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, grant agreement No 101006203) with a consortium of ten partners in seven countries. With the expansion of the network to include twelve new labs at the halfway point, the project now covers 16 countries in the EU and associated countries.

For more information about shemakes, please see the website www.shemakes.eu and follow on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter @shemakes_eu).