A Sacred Place.
As introduced before, the idea of the ‘fashion augur’ (after ancient Roman and Greek religious figures who ‘listened to the future’) may represent an emergent breed of fashion operative and researcher.
Such creative figures will also require appropriate types of testing space – smaller, flexible, ideational, research ‘imaginariums.’ These places may be characterized by what I call SACRED aims, an acronym formed from the words, Scientific, Artistic, Commercial, Recreational, Eudaemonic & Daedal.
SACRED environments, personnel and organisations, will be exemplified by the best ‘far-ward’ (far off + forward looking) ideals of contemporary art and design education. But, they will also advance far reaching social and environmental responsibility, contest patterns of material consumption, and enhance collective states of wellbeing for fashion.
And, as a template for more conjectural and entrepreneurial creative ‘co-ops,’ these spaces might strategically converge on abstract notions of fashion not purposefully conducted elsewhere. With talent and technology becoming ever more the drivers of innovation, ‘augurs’ will need the means and resources to creatively fuel more undefined, even ambiguous research areas.
Such a policy may deliver increased productivity and recognition for new or emerging areas of investigation and lead to new responsible ideas, markets and commercial opportunity.
This scenario will also increase prospects of attracting the best emerging minds, not only in developing digital domains but, crucially, in more unfamiliar fields of research.
It is for these reasons, that original, uncommon and oblique forms of creative enquiry must be championed alongside more conventional or agenda-driven research, for its potential visionary influence and advancement of studentship, innovation, culture, enterprise and institutional influence.
