Across Europe, Creative FLIP’s Learning Labs are helping school communities understand sustainability. They do so by weaving traditional cultural practices with contemporary skills. From rural Romanian weavers to Viennese knit tech, students are learning fashion’s heritage and future in the same classroom—challenging conventional methods and highlighting how culture, craft, and innovation can shape creative citizenship and greener economies.
By Goethe-Institut Brussels
Learning Labs connect cultural and creative professionals with schools to co-create cross-sectoral learning programmes that go beyond traditional curricula. Students learn by doing—experimenting with materials, stories, and design while gaining insight into intellectual property, sustainability and creative careers.
The latest LLab edition (2024-25) focused on Sustainable Fashion and Textile. Here, students from urban schools to rural communities have learnt about garment production, traditional techniques and innovative tools, circular fashion, and intellectual property.
This feature looks at three out of ten Learning Labs that bring their local cultural heritage and traditional techniques to today’s fashion landscape.
In Slovenia, Rewoven Realities, implemented by Carnica Institut, empowered students to reflect on fashion’s impact by exploring sustainable fashion through hands-on design, traditional dyeing techniques, and upcycling.
In Vienna, Veronika Persché’s Tight-Knit programme paired students with industry experts to explore ethical production through the combination of traditional knitting techniques and new technologies.
In rural Romania, WhyWeCraft®: Cultural Sustainability Beehive by Asociația WhyWeCraft® engaged students with their biocultural heritage through weaving yarn and stories.
Each initiative invited young students to engage directly with their heritage through materials, stories, and new technology.
These Learning Labs illustrate how integrating heritage knowledge with modern creative practice can deepen cultural understanding, spur critical thinking and foster future-ready skills in sustainability and design. The hands-on experience challenges students to see tradition not as static history but as a living resource for creative innovation.
By reviving ancestral techniques while experimenting with innovative dyes, digital design, and performative expression, the participants gained a more in-depth understanding of fashion, sustainability, and creative ownership. Together, these case studies highlight how fashion can become a powerful platform for cultural continuity, critical reflection, and imaginative transformation - one stitch at a time.
Creative FLIP’s Learning Labs (LLabs) have been connecting schools and creative professionals to co-create cross-sectoral programs for the past five years.
The case studies mentioned here were created under Creative FLIP, an EU co-funded project aimed at further increasing the long-term resilience of the CCSI in key areas such as Finance, Finance, Learning, Working Conditions, Innovation & Intellectual Property Rights.
