Guest Editors: Daria Casciani and Natalia Kataila

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Over the past decade, and with heightened urgency in the post-Covid period, fashion has undergone a profound digital realignment. No longer confined to discrete tools or isolated innovations, digitalisation has become a structuring condition of contemporary fashion practice. From 3D modeling suites and configurators to generative AI for modeling and product development, digital twins of avatars and garments for production and archival purposes, virtual showrooms, digital fashion for gaming, and platform-based retail infrastructures, digital technologies mediate the conception, production, circulation, and experience of garments. What has emerged is not simply a new aesthetic, but a reconfiguration of fashion as a socio-technical approach, wherein creativity, labor, identity, and value are increasingly negotiated through technological software and infrastructures. 

Scholars in design research, fashion, media, science and technology studies have begun tracing this shift. Yet much discourse remains polarised between celebratory narratives of innovation and skeptical accounts concerned with authenticity, labor displacement, and ecological costs. These tensions reveal a deeper need for critical frameworks that can situate digital fashion within broader transformations of cultural values, product development, integrated platforms, and materiality. Digital fashion design is neither immaterial nor frictionless; rather, it is embedded in networks of data extraction and manipulation, cloud computing, algorithmic governance, and global supply chains. 

To address these complexities, this special issue introduces a conceptual model of three interrelated trajectories of digitalisation:  

• Partial digitalisation encompasses digitally assisted processes that augment but do not fundamentally disrupt established design and production workflows. 
• Hybrid digitalisation refers to the entanglement of physical and virtual systems, where garments, bodies, and narratives circulate fluidly between material and computational domains. 
• Full digitalisation describes practices in which the fashion object becomes entirely virtual, enabling new economies of value, identity, and representation yet also distancing fashion from its material roots. 

These trajectories are not linear stages but overlapping modes of how digital systems reorganize agency: human (fashion designers and operators) and nonhuman actors (software, algorithms, and platforms). They also foreground the unevenness of digital adoption across global contexts and the differential vulnerabilities that arise from technological dependency, skill hierarchies, and opaque proprietary infrastructures. 

Crucially, digital fashion compels us to rethink foundational categories within fashion studies: What does materiality mean when fabrics are simulated? What happens to handcraftsmanship when humans collaborate with automated machines? What constitutes authorship when apparel designs are co-generated by AI or crowdsourced by platform communities?  How should sustainability be evaluated when the environmental footprint shifts from textiles to data centers? These questions signal a broader epistemic shift in how fashion is defined, practiced, and governed. 

 

SUBTOPICS

1. Digital fashion’s impact on design, production, and communication processes 

How is digitalisation reshaping the core processes of fashion practice, and what new dependencies and vulnerabilities emerge as creative work becomes increasingly mediated by computational and automated tools? We welcome contributions to digitalisation workflows’ new efficiencies, creative limitations, and skill erosion. Topics may include:  

• 3D modeling and generative AI for garment digital twins’ development 
• Digital prototyping and sampling tactile and craft-based skills  
• Virtual visualisation tools shaping marketing, retail, and consumer perception 
• Proprietary platforms access and creative autonomy 

 

2. Pedagogies of digital fashion for virtual, AI-aided, and hybrid practices 

How is evolving fashion education integrating virtual, AI-aided, and hybrid design practices in garment prototyping? We invite contributions related to digital and hybrid didactic practices and results, new curricula models and educational experiences. Topics may include: 

• Virtual garment creation through generative AI-driven modeling  
• Digital literacy about algorithmic bias, and assessment of sustainability impact, data governance, and rapid obsolescence of tools. 
• Comparison of craft-based, computational, and hybrid prototyping practices. 
• Access to and adoption of digital resources for extended participation in emerging new creative practices. 

 

3. Mass fashion personalisation and designer-consumer co-creation

What are the design pathways and skills necessary for parametric custom-apparel design? What possibilities and threats emerge when consumers become co-designers? We welcome research on parametric custom design, customisation platforms, real-time personalisation, and co-creative models that challenge traditional roles in fashion design and production.  Topics may include: 

• Body data-driven garment pattern design and construction  
• User interface and UX design of digital and virtual fashion co-creation platforms 
• Garment customisation and implications for supply chains 
• Open-source design processes and collaborative digital making, creative authorship in consumer-influenced or -AI generated design 

 

4. Design labor, professional identity, and ethics in platformised digital fashion practices 

As digital fashion becomes increasingly shaped by platform economies, automation and decentralised systems, the role and identity of fashion designer is under scrutiny. How are platform-based work, algorithmic visibility, and working with emerging technologies redefining the creative labor, professional authorship and ethical responsibilities in design and product development, as well as the identity of the fashion designer as a professional? We invite contributions that critically examine the structural, cultural, and economic implications of working within digital fashion platforms, including issues of recognition, intellectual property, labor rights, and data ethics. Topics may include: 

• Labor ethics, algorithmic visibility and creative autonomy in platform-based digital fashion gig economies 
• Creative authorship, IP justice, recognition, and ownership in decentralised design ecosystems 
• New creative identities, cultural responsibility and power structures in global virtual fashion environments 
• Data governance, design accountability, and ethical use of AI in design and fitting practices 

 

5. Sustainability, transparency, and the hidden materialities of digital fashion 

Although digital fashion appears immaterial, its infrastructure has real environmental costs, such as energy use, hardware dependency, and digital waste. How can designers engage with these issues in sustainable product development? Topics may include: 

• Energy and resource use in 3D rendering and digital asset creation 
• Hardware lifecycles, e-waste and overflow in digital fashion production 
• Transparency and traceability in digital design systems 
• Critical perspectives on the “immaterial” narrative of digital fashion 

 

6. Designing for digital bodies and identity in virtual and hybrid environments

How do digital bodies, avatars, and virtual fittings reshape fashion design practices and the way designers engage with embodiment, identity, and representation? This theme invites research that explores the embodied nature of digital fashion design—both from the perspective of the designer’s own bodily experience and in the creation of inclusive, expressive virtual garments for diverse digital bodies. Topics may include: 

• Embodied dimensions of digital design: how designers use their own bodies in virtual garment creation 
• Digital fitting technologies and their implications for design decision-making 
• Designing for body diversity, inclusion, identity expression, and gender performance in avatar-based fashion 
• Virtual garments and bodily presence in gaming, XR, and metaverse contexts 

SELECTED REFERENCES

Boughlala, A., & Smelik, A. (2024). Tracing the History of Digital Fashion. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 43(3), 171-186. https://doi.org/10.1177/0887302X241283504 (Original work published 2025) 

Casciani, D., Chkanikova, O., & Pal, R. (2022). Exploring the nature of digital transformation in the fashion industry: opportunities for supply chains, business models, and sustainability-oriented innovations. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 18(1), 773–795. https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2022.2125640   

Chan, H. H. Y., Henninger, C., Boardman, R., & Blazquez Cano, M. (2024). The adoption of digital fashion as an end product: A systematic literature review of research foci and future research agenda. Journal of Global Fashion Marketing, 15(1), 155–180. https://doi.org/10.1080/20932685.2023.2251033  

Choi, K.-H. (2022). 3D dynamic fashion design development using digital technology and its potential on online platforms. Fashion and Textiles, 9(9), 2–28. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40691-021-00286-1  

Crepax, R., & Liu, M. (2024). Affective Fashion Trends: Aesthetic and Digital Affects from Nostalgia to AR. Fashion Theory, 28(5–6), 839–865. https://doi.org/10.1080/1362704X.2024.2389595  

Lyu, Y., Wang, Z., Ye, Q., Sun, Y., & Chao, J. (2025). Body data-driven garment pattern construction in digital fashion innovations: A review. Textile Research Journal, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00405175251352800  

Repenning, A. (2024). Speeding up, slowing down, losing grip: On digital media metronomes and timespace friction in the platformised temporalities of fashion design. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 56(5), 1503–1520. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X241231691   

Särmäkari, N., & Vänskä, A. (2022). ‘Just hit a button!’ – fashion 4.0 designers as cyborgs, experimenting and designing with generative algorithms. International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education, 15(2), 211–220. https://doi.org/10.1080/17543266.2021.1991005  

Tepe, J., & Koohnavard, S. (2023). Fashion and game design as hybrid practices: approaches in education to creating fashion-related experiences in digital worlds. International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education, 16(1), 37–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/17543266.2022.2103591  

Wulff G, Gustafsson E (2026), Fashioning sustainable innovation. Exploring digital transformation in fashion through mass customisation and personalisation. International Journal of Innovation Science, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJIS-03-2025-0128  

ABOUT THE GUEST EDITORS

Dr Daria Casciani (Politecnico di Milano – Department of Design, Milan)

PhD in Design, Senior Researcher at the Design Department, Politecnico di Milano, where she collaborates with the Fashion in Process Research Lab developing research and projects at the intersection of fashion, sustainability, and innovation in the creative industries. Since 2023 she leads the Circular Fashion-Tech Lab, an interdisciplinary socio-technical research infrastructure supporting the digital, green, and circular transitions of the fashion industry, integrating Industry 4.0 and 5.0 technologies through a design-driven approach. She is also faculty member of the Design for the Fashion System Master Course at the School of Design of the Politecnico di Milano, teaching Fashion-Tech Design and Advanced Manufacturing for Sustainable Fashion. Her research focus on the transformative role of digital technologies such as 3D modeling, parametric design, 3D body scanning, additive manufacturing and collaborative robotics in fashion design and prototyping. 

 

Dr Natalia Kataila (Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki)  

Natalia Kataila (formerly Särmäkari), Doctor of Arts, is a fashion and design researcher with a professional background in clothing design. She currently works as a senior lecturer and head of the Master’s degree programme in fashion and clothing at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki. The programme is dedicated to responsible leadership and the circular economy in the textile and fashion industry. In her doctoral and postdoctoral research (2017–2024) at Aalto University, she examined digital fashion as a phenomenon and its impact on the profession and authorship of fashion designers, in convergence with digital culture, algorithms, and data-driven practices. More recently, her research has addressed digital fashion through the lenses of platformisation, the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of artificial intelligence, and the advantages and limitations of this emerging field. 

 

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE AUTHORS

We welcome full papers in English with a range length of 4000-6000 words, footnotes and bibliographical references excluded. It is highly recommended to use the template and APA STYLE as a formatting guideline. We also welcome the following formats:

• Book, digital games and digital exhibition reviews with a range length of 1500-2500 words.
• Case studies and digital fashion projects with a range length of 1500-2500 words. These contributions should include a visual / digital abstract in the format of video that showcases the projects. 

The deadline for submitting the proposals (saved in .doc or .docx format) via the platform is 31 May 2026. Issue 8 will be published in 2026.