Francesco Mazzarella

Dr. Francesco Mazzarella is a design researcher, educator, and activist striving to plant seeds of hope and change, especially working with marginalized communities. Francesco is a Reader in Design for Social Change teaching in a number of courses across London College of Fashion UAL, especially on the MA Fashion Futures. Francesco works at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, exploring ways in which design activism can be used to create counter-narratives towards sustainability in and through fashion.

His research spans the fields of design activism, textile craftsmanship, decolonizing fashion, design for sustainability, social innovation, and place-making. Francesco is currently the Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded 'Decolonising Fashion and Textiles' research project, the 'ReGo' project, and the 'Fashion Values' knowledge exchange project. Previously, Francesco was an AHRC Design Leadership Fellow and Research Associate at Imagination Lancaster University, supporting design research for change. Francesco was awarded a PhD from Loughborough Design School, funded by the Arts and Humanities Design Star Centre for doctoral training. His doctoral research project explored how service design can be used to activate textile artisan communities to transition towards a sustainable future.