Leonardo Centre Fashion Lab

Our Fashion Lab reimagines one of the world’s most influential industries as a driver of wellbeing and regeneration. We explore fashion’s complex systems - from materials to markets - to identify where innovation can reduce impact and create value. By linking design, data, and science, the Lab develops measurable, scalable solutions that make sustainability profitable and systemic change achievable. 

Key themes and objectives

Our central mission is to reposition fashion as a catalyst for wellbeing and regeneration—demonstrating that sustainability can drive business value, creativity, and social progress. 

Objectives 

1. Generate actionable insights that optimise operations and reduce waste across fashion’s value and supply chains. 

2. Advance scientific and technological innovation to decarbonise materials and improve resource efficiency. 

3. Build demand-driven design models that align production with real consumer demand, minimising overproduction. 

4. Integrate wellbeing metrics into fashion systems, linking human and environmental health to performance and profitability. 

5. Co-create with brands, innovators, and policymakers to pilot and scale solutions that deliver measurable systemic change. 

Key Research Themes: 

Value Chain & Wellbeing – Understanding how fashion supply chains affect worker wellbeing, community resilience, and consumer health. 

Decarbonising Synthetics – Developing circular materials, traceability tools, and low-carbon solutions for plastics, fibres, and packaging. 

Demand-Driven Design – Using data, AI, and behavioural science to drive agile, circular design systems and reduce overproduction. 

Key Projects: 

SAFEGUARD – Wellbeing and transparency in global supply chains. 

PLASTICS RECODE – Low-carbon plastics and decarbonisation through Environmental Attribute Certificates (EACs). 

REWIRE – AI-enabled demand forecasting, circular production, and design co-creation with brands like Roberto Cavalli.