At Indigenous Fashion Projects, fashion begins with Country. It grows from stories, fibres, relationships and the knowledge that has been cared for across generations. Before a garment reaches the runway, it has already been shaped by the plants that become fibre, the hands that continue cultural practice, the stories woven into textiles and adornment, and a deep responsibility to care for the places that sustain us.

For First Nations peoples, these relationships have shaped creative practice for tens of thousands of years. Textile traditions, adornment, making and design are expressions of identity, ecology, kinship and cultural continuity. They are inseparable from Country and from the knowledge systems that continue to guide how we live, create and care for one another.

This understanding sits at the heart of the Indigenous Fashion Projects Pathways Program.

While the program supports First Nations fashion designers in strengthening their businesses through mentoring, education and industry connections, its purpose extends beyond business capability alone. At its heart is a shared question: What might fashion education become when Indigenous knowledge systems and contemporary educational practice learn alongside one another? 

It is a question that has shaped the relationship between Indigenous Fashion Projects and RMIT University, where learning has become a shared practice built on trust, reciprocity and respect.

What began as conversations about delivering workshops has evolved into something far richer. Together, Indigenous Fashion Projects and RMIT have been exploring how learning can become a shared practice rather than a one-way exchange. Instead of knowledge moving from institution to participant, ideas travel in many directions. Educators learn alongside designers. Designers shape the learning experience through their own cultural authority, lived experience and creative practice.

Through leading the Pathways Program, I have come to see that some of the most important learning rarely begins inside a classroom. It begins by listening. It grows through conversations with artists, visits to Art Centres, time spent on Country and relationships built slowly over time. Every designer enters the program carrying generations of cultural knowledge, creative innovation and lived experience. The role of Pathways is not to replace that knowledge, but to create opportunities where it can continue to flourish alongside new industry skills, networks and possibilities.

Within many Western education systems, learning has traditionally been understood as the transfer of knowledge from expert to student. Across many First Nations knowledge systems, learning is relational. It is shaped through observation, listening, reciprocity, experience and responsibility. Knowledge is not something to be accumulated or owned. It is cared for, shared with purpose and held in relationship with Country, family and community.

These perspectives are not in competition with one another. Both offer valuable ways of understanding the world.

The opportunity lies in creating spaces where they can meet with mutual respect, allowing new approaches to learning to emerge through genuine collaboration.

It is this philosophy that resonated deeply with the team at RMIT University.

Reflecting on why the university chose to become Lead Education Partner for the Pathways Program, Ali Barker, Manager of Cultural Partnerships and Engagement at RMIT University, shared:

“The Pathways Program felt like a wonderful fit for RMIT because it aligns deeply with our commitment to emerging creative talent and cultural innovation. We also saw this partnership as an opportunity to share, learn from, and support First Nations practitioners who are already shaping the future of the industry.”

Those words acknowledge something fundamental.

The designers who join the Pathways Program are not arriving to become creative practitioners. They already are. They are artists, designers, makers, weavers, business owners and cultural leaders. They bring with them sophisticated knowledge shaped through generations of cultural practice, innovation, resilience and connection to Country.

The opportunity is not to teach creativity. It is to create an environment where creativity, culture and enterprise can continue to grow together, supported by relationships built on trust, respect and reciprocity.

For Dr Rashmita Bardalai, Acting Program Manager of the Bachelor of Fashion (Enterprise) at RMIT, this understanding has shaped the partnership from the very beginning. Rather than asking First Nations designers to adapt to an existing model of education, the workshops have been developed with the understanding that meaningful learning begins by recognising and respecting the knowledge already present within the room.

As she explains:

“Culturally responsive fashion education begins with listening and respect. First Nations designers bring complex histories, communities, cultural responsibilities and relationships to Country. So, in practice, this means structuring the workshops so that the content serves the First Nations designers’ existing practice and ambitions, rather than asking them to fit into a pre-set curriculum.”

This reflection speaks directly to one of the guiding principles of the Pathways Program.

Artist Jay Jurrupula Rostron – Babbarra Women’s Centre with model Jadene Croft, wearing her design, NIFA, 2024, Photo by Marley Morgan

Every designer enters the program with their own aspirations, business model, community, cultural responsibilities and creative practice. No single pathway can define success for everyone, nor should it. Instead, the program seeks to offer practical tools that designers can adopt, reshape or set aside according to what best serves their own vision, community and future.

That distinction matters.

Too often, education has been built around the idea that everyone should arrive at the same destination by following the same path. Indigenous Fashion Projects begins from a different place. It recognises that every designer is already walking their own path, and that learning is most meaningful when it strengthens, rather than redirects, that journey.

As Dr Bardalai continues,

“Deep Indigenous cultural knowledge held by these designers is already sophisticated and does not need to be validated by an industry framework to have value.”

Those words capture something that sits at the centre of this partnership.

Indigenous knowledge systems are not supplementary to fashion education. They are complete systems of knowledge in their own right. They hold generations of expertise in materials, making, design, ecology, sustainability, cultural governance and innovation. They have evolved over thousands of years through careful observation, adaptation and an enduring relationship with Country.

The opportunity is not to insert Indigenous perspectives into existing frameworks. The opportunity is to create spaces where multiple knowledge systems can sit alongside one another with mutual respect, each contributing its own strengths to the conversation.

This has become one of the most valuable lessons to emerge through the Pathways Program.

While industry knowledge offers practical skills in business planning, merchandising, production and market development, First Nations knowledge systems offer something equally important. They ask different questions.

Not simply:

Will this succeed?

But also:

Will this strengthen Country?

Will it strengthen community?

Does it honour cultural responsibility?

What will this leave for the generations still to come?

These questions invite a longer view of success.

In contemporary business, progress is often measured through growth, productivity, efficiency and return on investment. These are valuable measures and remain important for building sustainable enterprises.

Many First Nations knowledge systems invite us to consider additional measures of success.

How are relationships being cared for?

Who benefits from this work?

How is knowledge being protected?

What responsibilities travel alongside opportunity?

Seen through this lens, sustainability extends beyond environmental practice. It becomes cultural, social and intergenerational. It recognises that thriving businesses are built not only through financial outcomes, but through healthy relationships with people, place and culture.

Learning, then, becomes something more than the transfer of information.

It becomes an act of care.

Care for knowledge.

Care for relationships.

Care for Country.

Care for the generations who will one day inherit both the opportunities and the responsibilities created by the decisions we make today.

As the relationship between Indigenous Fashion Projects and RMIT has continued to grow, perhaps its greatest lesson has been that education is never a one-way exchange.

Reflecting on her own experience working alongside the Pathways cohort, Dr Bardalai shared:

“Working with this cohort has reminded me that fashion education should be relational. As educators and facilitators, we are also learning from the designers’ lived experience, cultural leadership, business realities and ways of working. It has reinforced that industry engagement should not be extractive or transactional. It should be built on trust, reciprocity and a willingness to adapt what we teach based on what the cohort identifies as meaningful and useful.”

For Indigenous Fashion Projects, this understanding resonates deeply.

Relationships have always been the foundation of our work.

They shape how partnerships are formed, how programs are designed and how opportunities are created. They remind us that genuine collaboration begins with listening, that trust takes time to build, and that the most meaningful learning often happens when everyone involved is prepared to both teach and be taught.

Perhaps that is the greatest strength of the Pathways Program.

It is not simply creating opportunities for First Nations designers to learn from industry.

It is creating opportunities for industry to learn from First Nations designers.

And in that reciprocal exchange, new possibilities begin to emerge.

Looking beyond the work of today’s Pathways cohort, Dr Tarun Panwar, Associate Dean of Fashion Enterprise at RMIT, believes the future of Australian fashion will be shaped not simply by greater diversity but by recognising First Nations leadership as fundamental to how the industry evolves.

Rather than positioning Indigenous perspectives alongside existing systems, he imagines a future in which Indigenous knowledge informs the systems themselves, influencing governance, enterprise, design practice and the way success is understood across the sector.

As Dr Panwar explains:

“First Nations-led enterprises would shape governance, investment and market strategy, with ICIP protections embedded in contracts, collaborations and education as standard practice. In this context, Indigenous design methodologies would operate as a primary framework for fashion enterprise: orienting business decisions around cultural authority, reciprocity and accountability to Country.”

It is an ambitious vision, but one that reflects a broader shift already taking place across Australia.

Increasingly, First Nations designers are demonstrating that fashion is not only a creative industry. It is a cultural practice. It is a form of storytelling. It is a vehicle for economic independence. It is a way to protect cultural knowledge while creating contemporary expressions of identity, innovation, and community.

Supporting this future requires more than opportunity alone.

It requires relationships.

Relationships built over time.

Relationships grounded in respect.

Relationships where listening comes before teaching.

Relationships where knowledge moves in every direction.

Perhaps this has been the greatest lesson of the partnership between Indigenous Fashion Projects and RMIT University.

Neither organisation arrived with all the answers.

Instead, both arrived with a willingness to learn.

That willingness has created space for conversations that challenge assumptions, celebrate different ways of thinking and recognise that meaningful education is never static. It continues to evolve as people, communities and institutions learn with one another.

For me, this partnership has also reinforced something I continue to witness through my work with First Nations designers across the country.

Some of the most profound knowledge shaping Australian fashion today has never been confined to textbooks or lecture theatres. It lives in communities. Elders hold it. It is carried through language, textile traditions, cultural practice and deep relationships with Country. It continues to evolve through artists and designers who are honouring inherited knowledge while creating new pathways for future generations.

When education recognises this, it changes.

It becomes less about delivering knowledge and more about creating the conditions where knowledge can be shared with integrity.

It becomes less about defining success and more about supporting people in defining it on their own terms.

And perhaps most importantly, it reminds us that learning is not something we complete.

It is something we continue throughout our lives.

As Indigenous Fashion Projects looks to the future, the Pathways Program will continue to evolve alongside the designers, communities, educators and industry partners who shape it. Each conversation, workshop and collaboration contributes to something larger than a single program. Together, they are helping to imagine a future in which First Nations knowledge systems are recognised not as an alternative perspective but as an essential part of Australia’s creative future.

Perhaps this is what reimagining fashion education truly means.

Not creating a new model.

But creating the conditions in which different knowledge systems can meet with humility, curiosity, and mutual respect.

Where learning begins with listening.

Where knowledge is carried with care.

Where Country remains the first teacher.

And where relationships continue to shape everything that follows.