Fashion Project Measures Sustainability
A CityUHK fashion exhibition with Italian partners used a new impact index to measure sustainability awareness.
A fashion exhibition in late 2025 served as a laboratory for measuring cultural innovation's role in governance and sustainability. The 'Fashion to Reconnect' project, organized by City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) with Italian partners, brought together 9 Hong Kong and 16 Italian designers.
Professor Esterina Nervino, the project coordinator, says the event combined fashion, sustainability and art to promote sustainability on a large scale. She argues that fashion's universal reach makes it a natural entry point for conversations about consumption and community.
Measuring Event Impact
Unlike many cultural initiatives, this project embedded accountability. The team developed an impact index to evaluate events across five levels: individual, community, city, institution and economic development. Fashion to Reconnect was the first event assessed with this tool.
More than 1,700 participants were surveyed to gauge changes in sustainability awareness and views of Hong Kong's creative identity. Nervino says the ability to measure impact is important. The findings will be published soon, and the methodology will be shared in a public white paper.
Professor Dorian Ho, a project consultant and exhibiting designer, notes fashion communicates values directly. The event's sustainability philosophy was visible: minimal printed materials, no plastic bottles, and active student involvement. Secondary school students performed a flash mob linked to the Sustainable Development Goals.
Redistributing Power Through Design
Ho's centrepiece, Dragon Glow, reimagined a vintage imperial dragon robe as a contemporary evening gown. Historically, only an emperor could wear such a robe. Ho transformed it into something feminine while preserving the original embroidery.
This act is aesthetic, cultural and political. Ho says fashion allows respect for tradition while questioning hierarchy. The piece is also an act of upcycling, though Ho admits this approach is difficult to apply in mass production.
He sees systemic innovation as necessary, pointing to work on new materials like bamboo and coffee-based textiles. For Ho, sustainability includes preserving craftsmanship like embroidery, which fewer younger designers are learning.
A New Concept of Luxury
Both professors argue sustainability is reshaping luxury. Nervino observes that luxury was once centred on product and brand, but is now increasingly centred on people.
Ho sees this in consumer behavior, where a garment becomes a precious object to be inherited. In this view, true luxury is defined by responsibility, not excess.
Nervino describes the project as an ecosystem, where creating a sustainable design is not enough without a sustainable overall experience. The project connected academia, industry, government and the community. For Ho, fashion should be a bridge connecting past and future, tradition and innovation.
