RUFA at FORMA 2026: Sustainable Fashion Design as a Contemporary Subculture

In the academy’s vision, practising ecodesign means thinking in a circular way — imagining the entire life of a garment, from fabric to its second or third existence through upcycling, up to the responsibility of producing no waste. A sketch can become something else, a reclaimed piece can evolve into something unexpected: sustainable creativity is not a constraint, but a form of open thinking.
Visually translating this philosophy is the collage-panel curated by Simone Botte (alias Simon Cracker, fashion designer and RUFA lecturer), the central installation of the stand, which encapsulates RUFA’s transdisciplinary identity as a metaphor for an urban forest: an ecosystem of interconnections between languages, bodies, materials and knowledge. At RUFA, the fashion designer is never just about fashion — from the very first year, students engage in dialogue with cinema, gaming, performance and music. The arts listen, merge and transform.

A selection of garments displayed on racks and mannequins narrates the course’s aesthetic, combining material research with conscious design. The short film Fashion Persona introduces the narrative and visual dimension of students’ creative processes. An Augmented Reality station allows visitors to explore the carbon footprint of a garment, making sustainability tangible and interactive. Completing the installation is an interactive book created for Forma Faber, together with selected materials from the Franco Annoni archive — a bridge between textile memory and contemporary design. Within a festival that explores fashion as urban identity and a language of communities, RUFA brings the voice of those who shape that community from within: students who learn by doing, who make mistakes and refine their work, who envision the future of a sector starting from its contradictions. A proposal that does not celebrate fashion, but questions it — and, in doing so, renews it.