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Wearing Symposium invites researchers interested in exploring how clothing is lived, sensed, and negotiated in everyday life and in the fashion system. For the past half century, fashion and clothing have mostly been studied as a system of signification, a vessel for cultural expression and production of meaning. However, fashion does not exist without its experiential dimension, including practices of wearing, dressing and designing. Attuned to this fact, and the gap in existing knowledge, researchers have recently begun to invest in looking at dress not only as a cultural sign or commodity, but as something that is worn, experienced, as agentic bodies that affect and are affected. Works across design, art, sociology, anthropology and material culture have begun to attend to the relationships between people and the things they wear. While this is a young and evolving field, its potential and timeliness are clear. Bringing wearing into focus has the ability to reshape how we understand practices of design, care, and consumption, from localized to global dimensions, enabling more responsive, responsible, and inclusive clothing systems.  

The symposium seeks expressions of interest for presentations that investigate wearing through empirical studies, methodological innovations, practice-based inquiries or theoretical conceptualizations, opening new paths in the field. Some of the approaches through which these investigations are carried include participatory and co-design, posthumanism, affect theories, phenomenology, relational design, amongst others. We welcome contributions from scholars at various levels, including doctoral researchers. In addition to presentation in the symposium, selected authors will be invited to contribute to an edited book on the topic.  

To propose a contribution, please send an abstract (500 words) and short bio (80 words) to wearing@aalto.fi by 1st November 2026. 

Important dates

Submission of abstracts: 02.11.2026 

Results of invited presentations: 10.11.2026 

Registration: 10.11.2026—20.12.2026 (presenting authors only) 

The event is free of charge. Authors will need to make their own travel arrangements. The organising team is happy to support with letters and help with applying for mobility grants. 
 

Event Information

Dates: 21-22 January 2027 

Location: Aalto University, Finland. Otakaari 1 

The Symposium is organized by

Julia Valle Noronha 

Assist. Professor in Fashion Design (Aalto ARTS, Finland) 

julia.valle [a] aalto.fi .  

Ana Neto 

Assistant Professor in Design (IADE, Universidade Europeia, Portugal) 

ana.m.neto [a] universidadeeuropeia.pt 

Suggested Literature

Entwistle, Joanne. 2023. The Fashioned Body. John Wiley & Sons. 

Negrin, Llewellyn. 2016. “Maurice Merleau-Ponty: The Corporeal Experience of Fashion.” In Thinking through Fashion: A Guide to Key Theorists, edited by Agnès Rocamora and Anneke Smelik, 115–131. London, UK; New York, NY: I.B. Tauris. 

Neto, Ana. 2024. Usership in fashion: a grounded theory on wearer-clothing relationships. Universidade de Lisboa.  

Ravnløkke, Louise, et al. 2024. Design for Longevity: The Need for Participatory Approaches. In Global Fashion Conference, pp. 72-89. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.  

Ruggerone, Lucia. 2017. “The Feeling of Being Dressed: Affect Studies and the Clothed Body.” Fashion Theor, 21 no.5: 1–22. 

Sampson, Ellen. 2018. The cleaved garment: The maker, the wearer and the “me and not me” of fashion practice. Fashion Theory 22, no. 3 (2018): 341-360.  

Smelik, Anneke, Lianne Toussaint, and Pauline van Dongen. 2016. “Solar Fashion: An Embodied Approach to Wearable Technology.” International Journal of Fashion Studies 3 (2): 287–303.  

Valle-Noronha, Julia. Becoming with Clothes: Activating wearer-worn engagements through design. Aalto University, 2019.  

Young, Iris Marion. 2005. On female body experience:" Throwing like a girl" and other essays. Oxford University Press.