BackgroundIn a state of climate emergency with severe pressures on Earth and living beings, the meaning and relevancy of fashion weeks in today’s society are called into question given that fashion in Western societies often epitomizes fast consumerism. Scholars and media outlets are challenging the necessity of the event given its impacts on the environment and more decisively, its aptitude to product obsolescence and exaltation of the ever new.

PurposeThe study was conducted to explore fashion weeks’ opportunities to drive systemic change in the fashion industry by reinventing their means of being away from a driving force of novelty, trends and speed to reflect sustainable development instead.

Method The method for this study follows an exploratory character with abductive reasoning in order to gain insights into an untapped field of research and emphasize idea generation. Therefore, it uses Copenhagen Fashion Week as case to situate the researcher in a real-life context, allowing access to the event and the organization behind. The primary source of data collection are 13 semi-structured interviews, supported by ethnography and observations.

Findings The results revealed that fashion weeks’ current format is pressured from a sustainable angle, through digitization and a shift in event attendees. The exploration of fashion weeks’ opportunities to act as change agent for a systemic shift unraveled eight themes. Four themes - B2B platform, consolidation, curation and supportive structures - depict rather incremental changes. A second set of four themes - community and partnerships, direct-to-consumer localism, less material spaces and radical visibility and transparency - portray transformational pathways. Two leverage points were allocated as constraints for fashion weeks to function as driver for systemic change that are transcending paradigms and self-organization.

Delimitations and Future ResearchFindings are mainly based on insights gained through semi-structured interviews and are based on an exploratory research character. Thus, conclusions have to be drawn with caution since themes have been derived from select interview participants representing the Global North. Future research might want to examine the use of language for the terms sustainability and system change from an industry-perspective as a lack in common understanding became evident. Besides, investigating how fashion weeks could overcome mentioned system constraints could unveil their potential to change a system.