What If? Reimagining Fashion & Nature Stories | Free Workshops for Children

What if fashion loved nature — and we could dream up stories to show how?

Children are invited to join these free workshops, with Hannah Riley from London College of Fashion, to go on storytelling adventures exploring how fashion can care for nature and our world.

Today’s fashion world takes too much from the planet and exploits too many people. But fashion is fun and an important part of cultures and identities. What if we could change fashion together? To build a better and fairer fashion world, we need to think in different and creative ways. Children have amazing imaginations and fresh ideas—and they can help lead the way!

What new stories, exciting possibilities, and magical worlds can children imagine to help fashion become kinder, more inclusive, and more caring for people and our Earth?

In keeping with the 2025 Summer Reading Challenge theme, Story Garden – Adventures in Nature and the Great Outdoors, these workshops will inspire and empower children to consider the ways fashion and our clothing impacts nature and how we can make, wear and practice fashion for the better.

Workshop Activities

Through storytelling, dressing-up, drawing and creative writing, children will create an imaginary world, story and characters which reimagines ways we can engage with fashion that values nature.

There are three workshops in this series on different dates. Each workshop has the same format but is centred around a different ‘what if’ theme:

• Wednesday 6th August, 10am-12pm: What if our clothing could grow flowers and plants?
• Wednesday 13th August, 9:30am-11:30pm: What if our clothing was made from food waste?
• Wednesday 27th August, 10am-12pm: What if we could never throw away our clothing?

In each workshop, we will:

• Read and discuss a ‘What if?’ Story example which re-imagines our relationship with fashion and nature

• Create our own stories, imaginary worlds and characters

• Play dress-ups as our imaginary characters

• Upcycle and reinvent donated clothing, diverted from exportation and landfill.

At the end of the workshop, children will take away:

• A storybook with their original story which explores a fashion and nature imaginary world, ready for sharing
• Their fashion artefact – a clothing item that they have upcycled/reinvented that represents their imagined character

• A polaroid photo of them dressed as their imagined character.

This workshop series is designed and facilitated by Hannah Lauren Riley, in collaboration with the Portal Centre for Social Impact, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, and Stratford Library, Newham Council.

Additional Details

Audience: These workshops are suitable for children ages 7-12 years-old.

Location: They are held in-person at the Hopkins Room, Stratford Library, 3 The Grove, London, E15 1EL.

Attendance: These workshops do not require parents or guardians to be present. Children can be dropped off for the workshop session and collected at the end. Hannah has an Enhanced DBS check, safeguarding training and experience working with children.

About the Facilitator | Hannah Lauren Riley

Hannah is a sustainable fashion designer, practitioner and educator who facilitates empowering and engaging play and learning spaces for flourishing (fashion) futures. Through her practice, she explore alternative sustainability engagement, experiences and education through play, dress-ups and speculative futuring, re-imagining fashion systems and pedagogies.

She specialises in working with and for children and young people and currently facilitates her award-winning sustainable fashion practice and toolkit Fashion Recipes for the Future, through workshops with primary school students through working with University of the Arts London’s (UAL) Outreach team, as a Visiting Practitioner at London College of Fashion (LCF). She is also an Associate Lecturer at UAL, teaching across varied BA and MA courses.

Hannah also works for Centre for Sustainable Fashion (CSF), LCF, UAL, as their Digital Content Officer. She has an MA Fashion Futures, LCF, UAL, and BA with First-Class Honours, in Fashion and Textiles Design from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).

Connect with Hannah: Instagram, LinkedIn, Website

About Making for Change, Portal Centre for Social Impact, London College of Fashion

The Portal Centre for Social Impact, LCF, builds on ten years of Social Responsibility at LCF, reflecting the drive and ambition to cultivate inclusive, collaborative, innovative spaces and programmes through which the Centre’s communities explore and fulfil their creative potential.

The Centre’s vision - a world where fashion and creativity can inspire and facilitate positive social change – is expressed through community projects, cultural collaborations and the ground-breaking Making for Change programme, that delivers vocational training and a social enterprise.

Located at Poplar Works and now LCF East Bank, the Portal Centre will continue to engage with creative practitioners, students and academics whilst extending local community engagement to Stratford and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, continuing to support and nurture current and future creatives.

About Stratford Library, Newham Council

Stratford Library is one of ten libraries across Newham, London, each offering a range of services, community activities, books and other reading material.