Welcome!

Designing Economic Cultures is a research project that sets out to investigate the relationship between socio-economic precarity and the production of socially and politically engaged design projects.

The fundamental question the project poses is:
how can designers, who through their work want to question and challenge the prevalent economic system, gain a satisfying degree of social and economic security without having to submit themselves to the commercial pressures of the market?  Read more ›

Construction site for non-affirmative practice

Constructive Dismantling

My Castle Is Your Castle

Serpica Naro, an introduction

Serpica Naro is a ficticious fashion meta-brand that has been launched during the 2005 Milan Fashion Week. Serpica Naro is the anagram of San Precario. Today, Serpica Naro is licensed under the Creative Commons and the collective around it is working towards dismantling the conventional fashion industry with its exploitation of humans and nature.

THINGS THAT CAME UP DURING THE DISCUSSION

– Serpica Naro came out of the Chainworkers and San Precario collectives;
– the fashion system is based on luxury brands where the brand is everything, on fast-fashion where copying and logistics are everything and craftivism where DIY, empowerment and creativity are everything;
– big brands like Gucci, Chanel and Louis Vuitton are buying up smaller ones and are constantly gaining in value;
– Serpica Naro is trying to figure out how the fashion system works and to find ways to change it;
– OpenWear is a collective fashion project that has been supported by an EU grant;
– what blocks people working in the fashion industry from revolting against it is the atomization and the expectation of future happiness;

Links:
www.serpicanaro.com
OpenWear – a European fashion collective
Interbrand – measuring each year the value of brands

We would like to thank Zoe and Maresa for spending the afternoon with us.