Conversation with Timo Rissanen, Associate Professor, UTS

Timo Rissanen challenges listeners with innovative ways to think more sustainability about the fashion system, including design and retail. He focuses on the role that consumers play in this complex system and discusses the intrinsic connection between sustainability and social justice.

Timo is a newly appointed associate professor in fashion and textiles at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). During his decade at Parsons School of Design, he was associate professor of fashion design and sustainability within the School of Fashion. He also served as the School Associate Dean of the School of Constructed Environments, and he was one of the Associate Directors of the Tishman Environment and Design Center. He was born in Finland and trained as a fashion designer at the UTS in Australia. Rissanen completed a practice-based PhD on zero waste fashion design at UTS in 2013. As an artist he has focused on labour, politics and love through installation, performance and cross-stitched poetry. Rissanen co-curated Fashioning Now with Alison Gwilt in 2009 and Yield with Holly McQuillan in 2011, and he has co-published two books on fashion and sustainability, Shaping Sustainable Fashion with Gwilt in 2011 and Zero Waste Fashion Designwith McQuillan in 2016. Rissanen is a founding member of the Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion.

Learn more: LinkedIn

Hosted by: Christopher Lacy, Assistant Professor, Parsons School of Design

Produced by: Joshua Williams, Assistant Professor, Parsons School of Design

Executive Producer: Fashion Consort

Follow the podcast on Instagram: @RetailRevolutionPodcast