New technologies, shifts in social and cultural attitude, and environmental factors are continuously impacting how fashion is designed, manufactured, distributed, and communicated. Consequently, the industry requires fashion graduates to demonstrate an ability to identify, anticipate and respond to these changes using critical thinking and design frameworks that facilitate creativity, innovation, problem-solving, communication and collaboration. Facilitated by the Higher Education institution, Knowledge Exchange (KE) is the generation and sharing of knowledge with external partners or organisations for societal, cultural or economic benefit.

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Significantly, the exchange of industry knowledge with student knowledge presents an opportunity for the generation and co-creation of new knowledge between the two parties. Specifically, it opens up an all- important arena for students and industry to jointly address the dynamic challenges posed by the fashion industry, and in response, prototype new services, roles and products required for the future of the industry. Thus, KE can be argued to have an integral role to play in developing innovation, entrepreneurship and enterprise across the breadth of the fashion sector and related disciplines.