"Creativity fuels our imagination, and our imagination fuels our dreams of a better world." - Greta Thunberg

The 2023/24 Fashion Values Challenge is now open, and the applications process is well underway. As you may be aware, the Challenge has been open to emerging creatives and businesses – but this year we wanted to bring in the voices from a new pool of talent. We are therefore excited to announce that in addition to the main Fashion Values Challenge, we have just launched a brief for 16–18-year-olds aimed at pre-higher education students!

We’re inviting students within this age range to share their responses to this year’s central challenge question: How can fashion value cultures of wellbeing? We’re looking for radical and game-changing ideas across the fields of design, media and/or technology that will enable the fashion industry to truly value the traditions, heritage and social customs that underpin cultures of wellbeing. With a very open brief, your idea could be anything from an innovative product or service to a transformative system that brings people together. We want to encourage you as much as possible to be imaginative, original and radical with your ideas – no idea is off limits!

We feel having a 16-18 Brief is the perfect opportunity to acknowledge the younger creative communities across the UK who are thinking about further studies or careers in fashion. The Fashion Values programme is underpinned by the desire to solve some of fashion’s most challenging obstacles to becoming a fair and equitable system – and we want as many people as possible to be included in the journey. We are therefore opening the conversation to a new audience to collectively develop our understanding of how fashion can value cultures and give a voice to younger generations. We hope that the 16-18 Brief will also encourage more thinking and practice in this area, thus laying the groundwork for the next generation of change-makers in fashion.

If you’re interested in applying, download the 16-18 Brief for all information on how to apply and the process. The deadline for applications is 4th March 2024. Remember you must be 16-18 years of age to apply, and you can either apply alone or as a group.

For any students looking to familiarise themselves with this year’s theme of Cultures, we have a range of useful resources to help you develop your ideas, including our free online course Fashion Values: Cultures. The course aims to give you a solid foundation of understanding on the relationship between fashion and culture, the challenges associated with it, and the opportunities for change within this space. We will be posting more Voices as well over the coming weeks, so keep your eyes out here for more content on this year’s theme.

A selection of submissions to the Open Call will be publicly showcased across April 2024 as part of Centre for Sustainable Fashion’s ‘Imagining Possibilities’ Festival at London College of Fashion, East Bank, Stratford. This is a fantastic change to have your work showcased to both the public and industry professionals – it’s an opportunity not to be missed!