ABSTRACT
For the individual citizen, fashion offers the opportunity to be noticed. There was for a long time an assumption that modernity, urbanization and the growth of fashion went hand in hand. Simmel and Weber characterize modernity as a decisive break with the past - from rural tradition and stasis - to urban change, fragmentation and mobility. The spirit of emancipation and liberation that modernity, fashion and urban life offer when viewed through a sustainability lens, lack critical understanding of the vital elements of freedom and well-being. A role for the fashion designer beyond commerce is hard to imagine. When a designer considers their role as one of co-creator with the wearer, producer or other, this opens up places and spaces for active participation involving a range of agendas, actors, contexts and new applications of fashion. The role of designer as host involves an inversion of the usual hierarchical designer model.
