Curtains First, Clothes Later: Fashion Fictions Explained - With Amy Twigger-Holroyd (#165)
About this episode
Nick Johannessen interviews Amy Twigger-Holroyd about alternative fashion systems and the role of fashion fictions in sustainability.
In this episode of Garmology, Nick speaks with Professor Amy Twigger‑Holroyd, a designer, researcher, and academic specialising in Alternative Fashion Systems at Nottingham School of Art and Design. Amy shares her path from knitwear design and running a slow‑fashion label to becoming a leading researcher on sustainability, remaking, participatory textile practices, and what she calls fashion fictions. She explains how mainstream fashion systems limit imagination and reinforce unsustainable consumption—and how speculative, playful “fictional worlds” can help people imagine alternatives. The conversation explores remaking and mending, the cultural significance of handmade clothing, the psychology of fashion, participatory workshops, the blurring of fictional and real-world practices, and the ways collective imagination can inspire actual change. Nick and Amy also discuss sustainability fatigue, hope, ritual, meaning in clothing, and how fashion might evolve into something more connected, joyful, and human.
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