Manchester’s always moved with scrappy, DIY energy, but right now, something different is blooming. It proving it isn’t just another creative hotspot; it’s quietly forging a fresh system.
As Gemma Gratton, Executive Producer of Manchester Fashion Week, put it: “Manchester has always led; in music, in manufacturing, in movements. And now, it’s time to lead again by future-proofing fashion from the ground up.” That’s Manchester slowing down to do sustainability properly, not only with panels or fleeting hype, but real, grounded innovation.
This Autumn’s fashion week is all about sustainable fashion, wellness and tech: “not just a celebration of style, but a cultural catalyst for people, purpose, and progress,” Gratton says. It’s a return with intention.
In and around the city, other initiatives are also following suit. Caroline Herz, co-founder of Yard Atelier, lays it out: “The need to source materials wisely, re-cycle, re-use, re-new, and rethink in all areas of fashion … is at the centre of our vision for The Yard Atelier.” She’s building more than a studio, it’s a slow-fashion launchpad where designers twiddle with offcuts, learn from the Smart Works archive, and leave with actual skills and potentially small scale businesses.
This city doesn’t just talk change, it tangibly prototypes it. Manchester Metropolitan University is ploughing £4 million into a low-carbon fashion lab made from timber and straw that’s designed to be disassembled when it’s done. It’s the kind of living lab where students and designers collide over robotic, low-volume, eco-first production. Not flash, just function.
The data backs it too. WRAP’s research shows that for every three second-hand buys, almost two replace what would’ve been a new purchase, a 64.6% displacement rate. Repair work does even better, with 82.2% preventing a new buy entirely. That means those mending workshops in community centres aren’t niceties, they’re climate action.
Laura Fernandez, a WRAP policy advisor, sums it up: “Resale and repair are not just consumer trends, they have the potential to displace significant volumes of new product demand.” That’s cold, hard impact.
On the grassroots front, Stitched Up is running mending and upcycling sessions for young people, while Manchester Fashion Movement continues to turn heads in community events and providing spaces for SMEs to reach consumer, with it being described as “[not] just a shop, it’s a space to connect, learn and rethink how fashion works.” Again, less spectacle, more substance.
And it’s not just grassroots, local authorities are rooting for it too. Manchester City Council is embedding sustainability into procurement, giving contracts a 10% environmental weighting, plus piloting returnable cup systems, over 27,000 cups reused in eight months. Meanwhile, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) has formed a Sustainable Textiles and Fashion Group, mapping textile flows and piloting circular models across the city-region. As they say, with Manchester’s textile heritage and booming industry, it’s primed to lead on sustainable fashion.
When you stitch it all together, you see a city building something quietly revolutionary. Universities are prototyping future-ready production tools; creatives are learning to repair, reuse, rethink; councils are embedding sustainability into policy; and students are graduating with actual, change-forward experience.
Manchester doesn’t need that “fashion capital” badge. What’s happening here is deeper: rooted in resilience, creativity, and systems change.