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However, I then decided to use the fabric around it and sew it together to create ruching. I tried to tighten it all together by sewing it together a bit more. Eventually I got this crescent shape which I quite liked.

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My tutor then suggested that I place it on top of a fabric and after moving it around, we got this shape. I quite liked it so I sewed it together. After, we planned to cut around it.

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Here I was just playing around the fabric and seeing what I could come up with, again wanting to do something a bit sculptural.

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Here I tried twisting certain points of the fabrics and sewing it together to see what it would look like or if it would create any depth since it was just a flat piece of fabric at this point.

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I kept doing this and eventually I reached a point where I was satisfied with the size.

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I then developed on this. I tried putting in a ruffle on a masculine shirt and putting contrasting colours next to each other.

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I was also told to focus more on the textures, patterns and colours of the pieces of fabrics and question them throughout the making process. For example, can you make a piece of leather that's seen as masculine more feminine and how can you go about doing that? What would happen if you put two contrasting colours together? Would it make it more gender-neutral? I tried cutting out a floral pattern (something feminine) from a shirt and putting it on a leather piece (something masculine).

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I tried to think of ideas, however, what was holding me back was the idea that I had to create something that looked like a piece of clothing. I really wasn't sure on how to go about it or where to start. So my tutor suggested to simply forget about making it look like something wearable and rather just sew the fabrics together in perhaps something sculptural. This honestly helped my mindset a lot more since I felt less restricted.

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Obviously, I wasn't going to be able to do something so elaborate but I did want to try something sculptural like van Herpen or maybe create something with a textured pattern.

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Harris Reed is a british-american designer whose sole purpose is to blur the preconceived fault-lines people have about gender and sexuality through fashion. His design process takes inspiration from the current social and political issues that he feels most connected to and the work is built from assessing the responsibility that fashion has to spark conversation in relation to the injustices that are happening within society today, while staying true to the brand’s ethos that strives for a vision of gender fluidity and inclusivity. The main reason why I wanted to research into him was because his whole brand is about the beauty of non-binary which I thought was pivotal for my research.

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Here are just a few clothes that I cut up. I wasn't too sure on how to put it together yet so I researched a few designers to look at their work and see if I can get any inspiration from that.

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After talking with my tutor, it was suggested to look into boro textiles. Boro is essentially the practice of stitching together discarded pieces of fabric to create a new textile item. It is a practice that grew out of necessity in medieval Japan, and has evolved, four centuries later, into a distinctively gorgeous textile art form.

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Here I just created a rough mind map on the ideas I had so far.

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So far, the topic of the future of gender was interesting and I wanted to do more on this. However, I was still not sure on what to actually make so I decided to go back to the padlet provided to us and look at another article.

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Knowing that the gender stereotypes and roles we have today are simply a product of colonialism and do more harm than good, it seems that there are benefits to the future of gender abolition.

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And it doesn't just stop at gender roles. How we dress also depends on what culture we're from if we're going to be assigning masculinity and femininity. The nomadic African Wodaabe tribe have an interesting annual festival where the tribesmen dress up and have tribeswomen pick them as husbands. This completely differs to the usual western/colonial idea of gender where the emphasis of beauty is usually placed on women and men take their pick. We may see these tribesmen as 'feminine' for dressing up and winning the admiration of female judges but this is completely 'masculine' them. Ergo, what's masculine and what's feminine differs from culture to culture.
Another example would be North Africa, Middle east and South Asia. In these regions, it's part of cultural practice to apply something called Kohl. Kohl is an ancient eye cosmetic placed in the water line or around the eye. It's a completely gender-neutral practice and what a lot of westerners mistake as makeup, specifically eyeliner. While it may be makeup to us, to them it's been around for centuries ever since the ancient Egyptians where it is believed to have first started. To them it's not for beautification but rather for religion and spirituality.

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African tribe where MEN spend hours doing their hair and makeup to impress the women: Annual festival sees males compete to steal each other's wives

The Wodaabe are a nomadic tribe that live in territory that spans Niger, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Chad

Once per year they hold a fertility festival called Gerewol, where men compete in front of female judges

Wodaabe women prize white eyes and teeth, so men wear face makeup to accentuate these features

Female judges select the men who they find most attractive to spend the night with, or to take as a husband

Putting on makeup, dressing in your finest clothes and doing your hair will be familiar parts of any woman's beauty regime - but for the nomadic African Wodaabe tribe it is the men who put in all the effort to attract a partner.

Sometimes known as 'the world's vaniest tribe', Wodaabe men are known to carry mirror with them everywhere they go and to spend each morning fixing their appearance before even going to herd cattle.

And once a year they go all-out at the Gerewol fertility festival, often known as the wife-stealing festival, where men dress up and compete in a series of dances to win the admiration of female judges - and a lot more besides.

Wodaabe culture prizes white eyes, white teeth and height as the pinnacle of beauty, so the men don brightly-coloured makeup and eyeliner to accentuate these features.

They will often put feathers in their hair or wear elaborate headdresses to accentuate their height. They also shave the hair off their foreheads and braid the remainder down their backs, often adoring it with beads.

Competitors will then take part in dances over the course of a week, culminating in a night of dancing that goes all the way through to dawn the following day.

Gerewol is known as the wife-stealing festival because Wodaabe men typically have a marriage arranged for them at a young age, meaning most of those taking part in the ceremony will be married.

But the Wodaabe are a polyamorous people, meaning that sleeping with other people while married is not taboo. As a result, women participating in the festival will typically sleep with the men they choose as winners.

If she chooses, the woman can leave her current husband and marry the man she has picked - meaning that some Wodaabe tribesmen will have several wives.

These photos were taken by travel photographer Trevor Cole from Londonderry, Northern Ireland, who went to Chad in September last year to capture the images.

He said: 'To participate in the Gerewol, the girls must have menstruated prior to the festival. Effectively when choices are made the girls know they are going to have sex in the bush with the chosen Wodaabe male, if the male accepts them.

'This may be a one night affair, or last for longer, sometimes culminating in marriage. Men may have a few wives and, as women do all the work, second or third wives are seen positively by the first wife.

'The girls may be as young as twelve or thirteen when they make their selections at the Gerewol,' said Trevor. 'They have no formal education and their culture is still resilient to the outside world.

'As a tribe, they perform the Gerewol for themselves not for any visitors. Very few have ever seen this in Chad. More have seen it in Niger but instability has curbed any potential tourism.

'There were only a few photographers and travellers there, but the friendliness of the tribe was universal although quite a few were shy, which is part of their cultural code.'

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Wodaabe tribe where MEN spend hours doing their hair and makeup

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The Wodaabe are a nomadic tribe that live in territory that spans Niger, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Chad Once per year they hold a fertility festival called Gerewol, where men compete in front of female judges Wodaabe women prize white eyes and teeth, so men wear face makeup to accentuate these

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In fact, the gender stereotypes and roles we have within the western world were all simply products of colonialism. If we take a look at pre-colonial countries, their definition of gender roles and stereotypes are completely different to what we have today. If we look at the Philippines before being colonised, women actually had the same status men had. In the Philippines, society valued offspring regardless of gender. Female children were as valuable as male ones, mainly because they recognized that women are as important as men. Parents provided equal opportunities to their children. Filipino daughters could also go to school, inherit property, and even become village chiefs like Filipino sons. Compare this to the Spanish colonial idea of gender roles, we can see a clear contrast (mainly due to the influence of religion). What was seen as masculine (power, wealth etc.) in the eyes of colonisers was actually seen as completely gender neutral in the eyes of the Filipinos.
Looking at the Native Americans, what's interesting about their culture was that they didn't have any concept of gender. What they had instead were something called 'energies' and 'spirits'.

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But what are the masculine and feminine traits? For masculinity, we've assigned leadership, confidence and outgoing behaviour as key traits. This contrasts the traits we've assigned femininity: nurturing, empathetic and softness. This ties in with the idea that men and women are both polar opposites and complete each other when it comes to compatibility in relationships. This idea, however, completely disregards queer relationships and people who identify outside of typical gender norms.

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Gender abolition: Why it matters - Cherwell

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Doing further research into gender abolition, I came across this article written by Iseult de Mallet Burgess in which she argues that the concept of gender must first be deconstructed in order to then deconstruct the patriarchal system. I personally enjoyed reading her article as it perfectly summed up many points I tried to make. As she states, "There is nothing inherently masculine about the colour blue – yet since we have a concept of gender, we assign cultural significance to that colour. Similarly, we assign arbitrary roles to biological sex. Males are expected to fulfill a masculine gender role just as females are expected to fulfill a feminine gender role. People who deviate from these culturally enforced norms are subjugated. Transgender and non-binary people, for example, are subject to unjust levels of violence and abuse for 'violating' the dominant gender ideology."
We've created this idea of masculine and feminine and tied it to specific groups of people. This is not only restricting to cis gendered people but also greatly harmful to trans and non-binary individuals as they're not given the freedom to express themselves and when they do, they're scorned at.

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"Gender equality" is a fashionable phrase. Neoliberal feminism would have us believe that gender equality is a suitable end-goal for feminism. Certainly, this is a convenient assertion, and doesn't require a huge amount of critical thinking. It is, however, painfully short-sighted and inadequate. To advocate for gender equality, and simultaneously ignore the structural foundations of the patriarchy and endorse the existence of oppressive gender roles, is paradoxical. The solution cannot be simply equality. It must be the dissolution of gender as we know it.

Gender is not innate, nor inevitable. Gender is a socially constructed class system in which the class of man benefits from the systematic oppression of the class of woman (as anti-trans 'feminists' have appropriated some of the language of gender abolition, it is important to make clear that this category of women absolutely includes trans women). While sex refers to physical and biological characteristics, gender is a term to describe behaviours and attitudes assigned to these features. We gender biological sex characteristics just as we gender toys, clothing and colours. There is nothing inherently masculine about the colour blue - yet since we have a concept of gender, we assign cultural significance to that colour.

Similarly, we assign arbitrary roles to biological sex. Males are expected to fulfil a masculine gender role just as females are expected to fulfil a feminine gender role. People who deviate from these culturally enforced norms are subjugated. Transgender and non-binary people, for example, are subject to unjust levels of violence and abuse for "violating" the dominant gender ideology. It is also critical to note that while gender roles have existed for millennia, the modern gender binary is a narrative of Christianity, colonialism and capitalism, and proliferated wildly with British colonialists' criminalising of non-binary existences throughout their colonies. Simultaneously, many marginalised groups such as women of colour and disabled people have been systematically excluded from modern conceptions of gender. Normative femininity, for example, has been traditionally tied to whiteness and ableism.

Gender abolitionists call for the dissolution of gender roles and associated cultural norms. A utopian society, for the gender abolitionist, would involve an elimination of the gender class system by ceasing to socialise people into arbitrary roles based on biological sex. One's sex characteristics would ideally become culturally insignificant. So long as the social classes of man and woman exist (and females are socialised into femininity and males into masculinity), the existence of gender is inherently oppressive.

But what if I want to keep my gender? This is an important question, particularly when considering the impact of gender abolition on the identities of those in marginalised groups, such as transgender and non-binary people. It is important to note that gender abolition is about dismantling the basal structures of the patriarchy, not about barring people from expressing their identity. So although the elimination of socialised gender roles is, in theory, the eventual elimination of gender itself (for example, the social classes of man and woman are abolished), gender abolition does not prevent people from engaging with masculinity and femininity and constructing their identities around those concepts. Rather, any conception of gender would arise from within, and be part of one's self-identity, rather than a tool used by society to prescribe a role or identity. Hence, these identities would no longer emerge from or reinforce structures of power and no one would be forced into a rigid binary.

The very idea that we can prescribe a positive set of behavioural characteristics to one's sex is inherently flawed. Human brains are not sexually dimorphic. The idea of a 'male brain' and a 'female brain' is a product of neurosexism, and has been discredited. This is not to say that some sex-based differences don't exist outside of socialisation - but rather that these differences are patterns and resist dimorphic categorisation. Sex itself, in fact, is not a binary, but a biological spectrum. Nevertheless, even if we entertain the idea that certain traits are linked to biological differences - such as aggressiveness being linked to the concept of maleness - this does not automatically justify the existence of a set of socially enforced stereotypes dictating how males or females ought to act. We can and should still want to rewrite cultural narratives for males and females and relinquish a gender binary which cannot capture the intricacy and diversity of human behaviour.

What, then, is the way forward? Firstly, we must acknowledge that the total abolition of gender is, at this point, a utopian dream. Because gender is influenced by, and enshrined in, religion, medicine, law, culture and so on, its abolition involves the revision of the most foundational aspects of society. Policy action has the ability to limit the material divisions of gender - for example, through universal healthcare, universal housing, prison abolition and bureaucratic reform. Individually, we can and must start to recognise and dissect the ways in which we have undergone gendered socialisation from our family, friends, education and the mass media. Why do we, as women, feel ugly if we do not wear makeup or shave? Why do we assign arbitrary cultural significance to anything from colours to shampoo bottles? Why do we force gendered stereotypes onto our own children? Furthermore, gender abolitionism cannot exist in isolation. Women and gender nonconforming people of colour have a unique experience under the patriarchy, and eliminating oppression based on gender must pay attention to intersections of race and gender.

"Gender equality" under the patriarchy - which by definition is a relationship of dominance - is fallacious. We must deconstruct our archaic belief in gender itself.
Artwork by Mia Clement.
Thank you!

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Gender abolition: Why it matters - Cherwell

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"Gender equality" is a fashionable phrase. Neoliberal feminism would have us believe that gender equality is a suitable end-goal for feminism. Certainly, this is a convenient assertion, and doesn't require a huge amount of critical thinking. It is, however, painfully short-sighted and inadequate.

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An interesting example of this would be the differences in girls toys and boys toys. Girls are given baby dolls to take care of and mother while boys are given aggressive toys such as guns and wrestlers. I came across this article which discussed research that was conducted in regards to gender-typed toys. The research showed that neutral-typed toys were the most educational for children and ones that were strongly gender-typed weren't benficial for cognitive development.

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What the Research Says: Gender-Typed Toys

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What makes a good toy for a young child? NAEYC asked two researchers about what their work tells us about toys, children, and play.

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At this point, I definitely knew I wanted to do something on the topic of gender but I decided to integrate fashion and sustainability in to it. I came up with the idea to make clothing/apparel that was gender-neutral and questioned the ideas of masculinity and femininity but also upcycling it by using thrifted clothing to make it.

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For this module, I didn't have much ideas at first in regards to the theme 'Future'. So I took a look at the padlet that was uploaded on Moodle and found a couple of articles that interested me.

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The second article I clicked on was about fashion and the future of AI. It talked about how virtual technology could be at the forefront of the fashion industry and explaining the benefits of this. Instead of creating clothes that would only be worn for a certain amount of time and then thrown away, we could create virtual reality glasses that could place an image of clothing on to a person. This would be more sustainable and would save over 80% of clothes going to landfill. I found the innovative ways of sustainability in the fashion industry to be interesting.

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It’s Time for a World without Gender

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The idea of gender is undergoing a revolution, as unconventional gender behaviors gain in acceptance. At the same time, however, virtually every societal move away from the gender binary-such as permitting gender-neutral designations on various documents-triggers a corresponding backlash.

These controversies bring to the fore a centuries-old question: how fundamental are sex categories? Do humans "naturally" belong to one of two groups, female or male, that are distinct not only in the form of their genitals but also in their brains and behavior?

For about 1 percent of humans, answering this question in the affirmative leads to a great deal of physical and emotional pain. These are people born with intersex genitals; for them, being forced to fit into one of two sex categories often means facing ostracism or undergoing medically unnecessary surgeries. But what about all the others? Do humans with female and male genitals belong to two distinct classes?

Studies comparing groups of women and men often find differences between the two. Some of these are small (for example, women's reading comprehension is, on average, slightly better than men's); other differences are large (for example, most women prefer a man as a sex partner whereas most men prefer a woman). One can argue ad infinitum as to whether these differences stem directly from an individual's sex (for example, a result of exposure to high levels of testosterone in the womb), or from the different ways in which society treats individuals with female and male genitals. But this nature-versus-nurture debate is irrelevant to the question: do women and men belong to two distinct classes?

If so, then characteristics on which women and men differ should add up consistently within each individual-just as genital organs do (most humans have genital organs that are either all male or all female; only that 1 percent with intersex genitals have a mixture of the two types). But differences in brain and behavior between men and women don't add up in this manner. Very few individuals have only female-typical or only male-typical characteristics. Most humans are a mixture of both-a unique mosaic of female-typical and male-typical characteristics. Our scores on various neural, psychological and behavioral parameters don't consistently add up in any one person. Rather, they mix up. You may very well score high on the ability to visualize geometrical objects, as is more common in men, but at the same time, you may be more interested in people than in things, as is more common in women. You may be a nurturing type and also good at fixing things. The list of potential mosaics goes on and on.

But if humans are mosaics of features, why do men and women sometimes seem to be so distinct? The answer lies in the binary division itself. Even though humans do not belong to two distinct sets in terms of their brains and behavior, the binary division of humans into two social categories is real, and it exerts a profound effect on the way we behave and the way we perceive ourselves and others. The gender binary assigns different roles, status and power to humans with male and female genitals, and different expectations from them in terms of their behaviors, preferences and psychological characteristics; it forces a population of human mosaics into a binary straitjacket.

Some of the effects of this role assignment may be relatively benign-discouraging people from baking cookies or mastering other skills they might consider "gender-inappropriate." But many are not: Even in gender-aware Western societies, the binary affects women's and men's career choices; exposes women to gender and sexual harassment; and leaves men to die in droves in armed conflicts and in work-related accidents.

It is time to get rid of the gender binary. It is time to start treating people according to their unique mosaics of characteristics rather than according to the form of their genitals. It is time for a world with no gender.

A world with no gender means that the form of one's genitals, whether female, male or intersex, has no social meaning-just as being right- or left-handed has no inherent meaning. (Although it used to: not so long ago, left-handed people were considered less capable than those who are right-handed, and parents would force their left-handed children to use the right. It's no coincidence that "right" is another word for "correct."

Scientists, meanwhile, searched for the neural deficits responsible for left-handedness. All these efforts have vanished, even though we are still left- or right-handed, and even though left-handed people are often frustrated that many tools and other objects are designed only for righties.

A world without gender does not mean there would be no differences, on a group level, between humans with female and male genitals. But in a world without gender, we simply wouldn't care. And why should we? If your child excels in math, or if you love poetry, does it really matter whether there are more people with female or male genitals among math wizards or poetry buffs?

I've had people tell me that the gender binary is a direct consequence of there being two sex categories. But even if this were true, it would provide an even stronger argument for getting rid of the binary gender system. Because if the effects of sex are unavoidable, then there is surely no need for a complex social system to enforce them

A world without gender is a world in which humans are encouraged to develop their full human potential. It's a world in which characteristics that are considered desirable for humans, such as empathy and assertiveness, are encouraged in everyone, regardless of the form of their genitals-and regardless of whether they have difficulties in acquiring these characteristics because of their genes, hormones, inadequate parental treatment, or socioeconomic conditions. At the same time, children and adults possessing characteristics that are considered undesirable, such as aggressiveness, are helped in overcoming them, regardless of their cause.

A world without gender is a world in which humans are free to fully express their talents in all areas, be it math, poetry-or both; in which humans are treated according to who they are, and not according to the form of their genitals; in which even the thought of grouping them by their genitals sounds as bizarre as grouping people according to the color of their eyes.

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It’s Time for a World without Gender

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The idea of gender is undergoing a revolution, as unconventional gender behaviors gain in acceptance. At the same time, however, virtually every societal move away from the gender binary-such as permitting gender-neutral designations on various documents-triggers a corresponding backlash. These controversies bring to the fore a centuries-old question: how fundamental are sex categories?

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Iris van Herpen is a dutch fashion designer known for her futuristic and fantastical aesthetic. Van Herpen’s designs are hypnotic garments based on multilayered kinetic sculptures.

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The first article I clicked on talked about gender and gender abolition- this idea that there is no real need for gender roles. The article talked about how people shouldn't focus on whether someone's a man or a woman but rather focus on their qualities as a person. This idea that women are more sensitive and emotional and men are more dominant are simply stereotypes pushed by society to the point where men and women and forced into these roles at a very young age. It's a social construct in which we're conditioned to behave a certain way to fit our role within society.

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I thought this was perfect for what I was going to do since the whole point of Boro is to combat fast fashion. So with the help of my tutor, I came up with the idea to buy second-hand clothes from a charity shop, cut them up and make something new, specifically a gender-neutral clothing piece.

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By Bel Jacobs Features correspondent

From virtual collections to limitless creativity, in the first of a new series on future culture, Bel Jacobs explores what style will look like in two decades' time.

Watch any recent science-fiction movie and you'll be struck by divergent visions of the future, as seen through the eyes of Hollywood costume departments. Follow the sartorial route of Ryan Coogler's Black Panther, for example, and we can expect to sheath our fortunately pneumatic bodies in reinforced scuba suits. Turn instead to the post-apocalyptic worlds of Blade Runner 2049 and the TV series The Expanse, and the offer is bastardised street wear, scavenged from the wardrobes of the past.

More like this:

- Is it the end for the suit?

- What does luxury mean now?

- The rise of guilt-free gems

Anything, apparently, is better than what we have now. From questions over modern slavery to the planet-levelling effects of over-consumption, fashion is under fire - and brands are having to adapt. According to a recent report shared at the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana's third international roundtable on sustainability in Milan, buyers at stores like Barneys and Saks in the US and Printemps in France expect to nearly double their total spending on sustainable products in the next five years, from 23% to 40%.

The costume design for the futuristic film Black Panther was widely acclaimed, and won the 2019 Oscar (Credit: Alamy)

What looks set to remain constant, however, is the urge to consume, hard-wired into human nature. As Dr Mark Summer from Leeds University School of Design wrote, in Fixing Fashion, this year's report by the Environmental Audit Committee: "fashion satisfies consumers' psychogenic needs... and any solution has to recognise - and maintain - these benefits.

Accordingly, innovators are exploring future solutions that offer all the hit of the new buy without stripping the earth - and the answers, increasingly, appear to lie in the digital world. "We're finally seeing the digital industry revolutionise age-old practice and evolving over the next 20 years," says Rachel Stott of The Future Laboratory. "Immaterial and digital fashion offers opportunities for brands to exert creativity, and connect with consumers through a different medium."

In TV series The Expanse the post-apocalyptic look is scavenged street wear (Credit: Alamy)

A hairstyle made from water, a dress that alters its shape according to sound: these are all possible &ndash; Rachel Stott

And in one manifestation, the clothes won't exist at all. When Norwegian retailer Carlings launched a digital collection last year, the fashion - futuristic streetwear, bought online and e-fitted to users' photos - was created to counter the 'wear once, take a selfie, chuck it away' philosophy of today's frantic online influencer. "We've opened up a world of taking chances with styling, without leaving a negative footprint on the world," Morten Grubak of Virtue Nordic, told iD's Jake Hall, at the time.

For the virtual generation, the digital collection is just a logical step forward. Fervent players of games like Fortnite, The Sims and Sansar already spend billions on things that aren't actually there - including clothes. "Increasingly, we will see digital collections and garments free from physical and creative restrictions become part of the fashion landscape," says Stott.

Norwegian retailer Carlings launched a digital collection in 2018, paving the way ahead (Credit: Carlings)

"There is a clear trend to blending the physical world with online content," agrees Matthew Drinkwater, of the London College of Fashion's Fashion Innovation Agency. His vision posits a future in which, using augmented-reality glasses that overlayg digital imagery onto the real world, we 'share' the clothes we want to be seen wearing into the AR glasses of others who are participating.

Pie-in-the-sky? Not quite. Working with Lucasfilm's immersive entertainment division ILMxLAB, Drinkwater introduced the project at designer Steven Tai's London Fashion Week 2018 presentation.

Games such as Fortnite offer players different identities for their avatars, a sign of things to come in fashion (Credit: Epic Games)

"The project hints at a future where we will be able to download content to our clothing, viewable through AR glasses, and present ourselves differently to everyone around us," says Drinkwater. "Our identities are constantly evolving and becoming more fluid by straddling both the digital and physical realms," adds Stott. "Digital fashion allows people to fully experiment with how they would like to be perceived - and push limitless creative boundaries. A hairstyle made from water, a dress that alters its shape according to sound: these are all possible."

Brave new world

But, if the thought of operating so completely online makes you jumpy, there are more concrete applications for the tech. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, $500 billion is lost every year in clothing under-use and waste costs; 87% of all fashion made goes to landfill. So what would happen if we only made clothes people really wanted? This is the concept behind NY-based digital agency Neuro Studio's latest work, Solventus 2019, a collection for which human models were 3D-scanned to obtain precise measurements before the garments were designed directly onto digital avatars.

Virtual-reality technology will play a key role in future fashion (Credit: Carlings)

The intention, eventually, is to only make the clothes - capes, body harnesses and leggings built with body-supporting weaves and cold weather fabrics; very post-apocalyptic - when someone orders them.

And there is, of course, more: Neuro Studio's collection encompasses 3D-printing, the tech that allows designers to tailor-make pieces digitally for individual customers. Sportswear companies such as Nike, which already allows shoppers to design their own trainers, posit a future where consumers will be able to 3D print their own shoes at home. Shoppers could become designers - when streetwear label Hype couldn't decide which design to go for, they let their customers choose via an Instagram post.

Fashion e-fitted to users' photos has already been created by Carlings, and is set to be more widespread in years to come (Credit: Carlings)

We are, says Stott, moving ever closer to consumer-designed clothing. "Fashion - the industry it once was - no longer holds the cultural imagination or kudos it once did," she says. "The hegemony of fashion influencers has shifted in recent years, from designers, creative directors and magazine editors to the people. The consumer wants creative input and hyper-personalised products, and technology is empowering them to do so."

Clothes will function as a new interface &ndash; Mano ten Napel

At the same time, the technology that goes into clothes themselves is galloping ahead. Smart fabric companies are developing materials that can gather data such as, in the case of the Nike Adapt BB basketball shoe, whether a wearer needs to alter their strike in order to avoid injury. "In the future, with the roll out of 5G, clothes will function as a new interface, impacting on the way we communicate with the connected world and with each other," says Mano ten Napel, founder of digital magazine FashNerd.

In the future clothing will become increasingly hi-tech (Credit: Carlings)

Whether or not these technologies will available to all, as in the case of fast fashion , is another matter. "I look at social behaviours," reflects fashion forecaster Geraldine Wharry. "And I think supply scarcity - in terms of water and fabric shortages and costs going up, for example - is going to be a big one. When those things happen, people shift their budgets for what they really need to survive." And fast fashion? "It's an outdated model," says Wharry. "I just cannot see how it can continue. Brands without some kind of sustainability strategy are in trouble."

Smartphones already play a major role in the fashion industry (Credit: Getty)

So where will the ordinary person turn for their fashion fix? As future tech evolves, parallel movements are showing a return to the hand made and the tactile. "There's a lot of interest in craft," says Wharry. "It's a different way of connecting with the clothes." Secondhand markets are exploding; according to fashion resale site ThredUP, sites like itself are growing 24 times faster than the retail industry as a whole. Meanwhile, the rental economy is gaining traction. "In fashion, rental can provide newness without the environmental cost," says Sara Arnold of Higher Studio.

Fashion will retain its identity as a form of escapism and expression

"Humans still need to be clothed so we will see a shift in the way in which we access clothing in the future," says Stott. "Ownership is no longer the end goal. We outsource our music and film choices to digital subscription services, and we will see a similar movement with clothing powered by AI. People will subscribe to central fashion services, and borrow clothes on a short-term basis according to their needs and lifestyle changes, reducing the masses of clothing sitting unused in a closet."

The character Luv is attired in white in the dystopian film Blade Runner 2049 (Credit: Alamy)

However we get our clothes, fashion will retain its identity as a form of escapism and expression, particularly as planetary conditions get more difficult. "If you look at the Great Depression, there was a lot of glitz and glamour," says Wharry. "And if you look at the trends right now, there's a lot of colour. Fashion is always a mirror of what is going on in society. There could be so much difference between the haves and the have-nots in the future that it could create very extravagant fashion."

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What will fashion be like 20 years from now?

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From virtual collections to limitless creativity, in the first of a new series on future culture, Bel Jacobs explores what style will look like in two decades' time.