Guest Editors: Benjamin Wild and Natalia Berger

Fashion has been personified as the younger sister of Death, a daughter of Caducity. It has been portrayed as a lifelong companion and described as capitalism’s favourite child. It has been conceptualised as a belief, a system, and an empire. These varied characterisations hint at fashion’s complexity as both cultural phenomenon and global industry. As the global fashion industry and academic field of fashion studies have expanded and diversified, so has fashion-related discourse. The terms and concepts used within and beyond the academy to discuss what fashion was, is, could be, and should be are numerous and increasingly varied.
At its core, this seventh issue of Fashion Highlight Journal seeks to examine both the theoretical foundations and practical implications of fashion discourse.

Full papers deadline: 10 January 2026

Guest Editors: Troy Nachtigall and Bruna Petreca

Fashion Technology is at an inflection point. As digital tools, computational design, and new materials redefine the ways we conceive, produce, use and "re-" Fashion, the Textile, Clothing, Leather and Footwear (TCLF) Sector faces both unprecedented challenges and novel opportunities. The intersection of fashion and technology is no longer a niche domain; it is reshaping the core craftsmanship, sustainability, design, communication, image and essence of what fashion means. This Issue 6 of Fashion Highlight invites contributions that critically explore fashion technology as a driver of material, aesthetic, and systemic transformation. We seek papers that investigate how digital and data-enabled processes are shaping contemporary fashion practices, fostering sustainability, and redefining the relationship between body, garment, and wearer.

Full papers deadline: 5 August 2025

Guest Editors: Khaya Mchunu and Nirma Madhoo

The amplification of right-wing, fascist rhetoric in 2025 is manifesting material effects on the lives of women, trans and queer communities, disabled persons, and Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC). The 5th Issue of Fashion Highlight uses fashion to ask, how can we mobilise to challenge the negative effects of these global changes? Are there instances and examples of fashion making, worldbuilding, archiving and other forms of fashion praxis that speak of joy, love, pain, beauty, brutality, pleasure, precarity etc.? Are these forms of fashion praxis generated in ways that allow BIPOC bodies and other bodies not only to resist but also to allow affective passage for their generative being and becomings?

Full papers deadline: 5 July 2025

Guest Editors: Alice Payne and Anneke Smelik

The 4th issue of Fashion Highlight invites reflections, provocations, and speculations on fashion's future, focusing on the tiny strands of fibre that are aggregated by the tonne, traded as commodities, spun into yarns, branded as products, and wrestled over in the marketplace. We invite papers on individual fibre stories of all forms, from viscose, cotton, wool, silk, polyester, nylon and beyond, on the role of fibre in a circular economy, the governance of fibre, the ethics of fibre, the cultural histories of new and old fibre technologies, fibre and place, and provocations on fibre’s agency and materiality. This call aims to stimulate a dialogue about fibre as the fundamental element of fashion, shaping its present and future.

Full papers deadline: 20 September 2024

Guest Editors: Valeria M. Iannilli and Alessandra Spagnoli

The 3rd issue of Fashion Highlight intends to investigate the dynamics, practices, and impacts of fashion consumption in the light of the transformations taking place, questioning the role and potential that creative communities, players in the - long and complex - fashion value chain, consumers and education can express. Authors from different disciplinary fields are invited to propose critical and theoretical reflections and applied contributions using different approaches and methodologies.  to provide an original perspective on the proposed topic. 

Full papers deadline: 14 April 2024

The 2nd issue of Fashion Highlight aims to encourage reflection on the relationship between fashion, artificial intelligence and rights, investigating how fashion, in this rapidly changing panorama, is questioning itself on privacy, intellectual property, inclusion, skills and responsibilities. One of the most relevant issues, in fact, is the possibility that AI preserves diversity, acts inclusively and protects individual identities.

Full papers deadline: 30 November 2023