Leonardo Centre Fashion Lab

Our Fashion Lab reimagines one of the world鈥檚 most influential industries as a driver of wellbeing and regeneration. We explore fashion鈥檚 complex systems - from materials to markets - to identify where innovation can reduce impact and create value. By linking design, data, and science, the Lab develops measurable, scalable solutions that make sustainability profitable and systemic change achievable.聽

Key themes and objectives

Our central mission is to reposition fashion as a catalyst for wellbeing and regeneration鈥攄emonstrating that sustainability can drive business value, creativity, and social progress.聽

Objectives

  1. Generate actionable insights that optimise operations and reduce waste across fashion鈥檚 value and supply chains.聽

  2. Advance scientific and technological innovation to decarbonise materials and improve resource efficiency.聽

  3. Build demand-driven design models that align production with real consumer demand, minimising overproduction.聽

  4. Integrate wellbeing metrics into fashion systems, linking human and environmental health to performance and profitability.聽

  5. Co-create with brands, innovators, and policymakers to pilot and scale solutions that deliver measurable systemic change.聽

Key Research Themes:聽

  • Value Chain & Wellbeing 鈥� Understanding how fashion supply chains affect worker wellbeing, community resilience, and consumer health.聽
  • Decarbonising Synthetics聽鈥� Developing circular materials, traceability tools, and low-carbon solutions for plastics, fibres, and packaging.聽
  • Demand-Driven Design 鈥� Using data, AI, and behavioural science to drive agile, circular design systems and reduce overproduction.聽

Key Projects:聽

  • SAFEGUARD 鈥� Wellbeing and transparency in global supply chains.聽
  • PLASTICS RECODE 鈥� Low-carbon plastics and decarbonisation through Environmental Attribute Certificates (EACs).聽
  • REWIRE 鈥� AI-enabled demand forecasting, circular production, and design co-creation with brands like Roberto Cavalli.

Partnerships and Collaboration

Achieving impact in fashion goes beyond research鈥攊t can really only happen when partners come together.

Leonardo鈥檚 Regenerative Fashion Lab works with external stakeholders, including , to co-create holistic projects with fashion and textile industry partners. These initiatives combine 海角社区鈥檚 scientific and systems expertise with Politecnico鈥檚 design-led innovation and industry knowledge to address the real conditions of fashion supply chains鈥攆rom materials and manufacturing to use and circulation.

Drawing on collaborators across 海角社区, including the Dyson School of Design Engineering, the Lab translates research into design-driven, manufacturable outcomes. The result is fashion innovation that is regenerative, commercially viable, and culturally relevant鈥攆ocused on tested, pragmatic change grounded in how fashion is actually made and worn.

Fashion Lab Lead

Hana Amer

Hana Amer

Hana leads the Regenerative Fashion Lab and supports communications at the Leonardo Centre. A former costume designer, she founded COUCA, a zero-waste fashion brand blending creativity and culture. At 海角社区鈥檚 Grantham Institute, she led strategic communications and public engagement. Hana specialises in stakeholder engagement, process optimisation, and interdisciplinary storytelling鈥攅specially linking science with fashion and the arts and championing regenerative design and innovative collaboration between sectors.

Join us at the cutting edge of fashion sustainabilty

To explore how we might collaborate:

Fashion Lab Team

Peter Childs

Peter Childs

Dyson School of Design Engineering

Peter's ImperiaProfile
Marina Gadkary

Marina Gadkary

Strategic Development Manager

Gah-Yi Ban

Gah-Yi Ban

Associate Professor of Analytics and Operations - Academic Director, MSc Business Analytics & AI

Livio Scalvini

Livio Scalvini

Executive Director, Leonardo Centre on Business for Society

Leila Sheldrick

Leila Sheldrick