Sustainable Fashion, Art & Business Panel Talk & Networking

Rethinking Consumption: A Conversation Inspired by Art & Fashion. Exploring how art, fashion and innovation can challenge overconsumption.

What can art and fashion teach us about the way we consume and how might creativity, innovation and business help us build a more sustainable future?

To mark the final day of Wolverhampton Business Week and the launch weekend of Sustainable Fashion Week, join Reinvntd CIC and Wolverhampton Art Gallery for a special Friday Lates panel discussion inspired by the Gallery’s internationally significant Pop Art collection.

Emerging alongside the rapid growth of mass production, advertising and consumer culture, Pop Art transformed everyday products, familiar brands and popular imagery into works of art. More than 60 years later, these themes remain strikingly relevant as businesses, communities and consumers confront the environmental and social consequences of overconsumption.

Using fashion as a lens, this lively and accessible conversation will explore how creativity, craftsmanship, material innovation, repair and reuse can change our relationship with the things we buy, wear and discard.

Our panel will consider:

• How art and fashion can make us think differently about consumption

• The influence of advertising, trends and consumer culture

• New and alternative materials for a more sustainable future

• Repair, reuse and upcycling as creative and commercial opportunities

• Changing consumer expectations and business practices

• The role of artists, designers, businesses and communities in creating change

The conversation will be hosted by Maya Patel, Founder and Director of Reinvntd CIC, the local organisation delivering Sustainable Fashion Week Hub Wolverhampton.

Following the panel and audience Q&A, guests are invited to stay for informal networking, meet others working across the creative, cultural, business and sustainability sectors, explore the Gallery and enjoy the wider Friday Lates programme.

You will also have an opportunity to contribute to a collaborative textile installation by sharing your own message or idea for a more sustainable fashion future.

Whether you work in the sector, run a business, study or teach, or are simply curious about fashion, art and sustainability, you are warmly invited to join the conversation.

Entry is free.