Fashioning Poplar - University of the Arts London, London College of Fashion

Fashioning Poplar: a fashion hub in Poplar, creating a local fashion ecosystem, generating local enterprise and employment.

This project used LEGO Serious Play during a series of consultative workshops with primary stakeholders (local unemployed women in Poplar, particularly those already engaged in sewing groups) to contribute to the design of an engaging and accessible model of fashion, employment and enterprise skills training and community engagement at Fashioning Poplar.

The creative workshops and engaging site visits, allowed an exchange between the Fashioning Poplar team and the women, that resulted in a greater understanding of stakeholders existing skills, aspirations and potential barriers to engaging in the project, and enabled the participants to explore and express how they feel about the regeneration in the local area. LEGO Serious Play was a particularly effective facilitation method in this context as it helped cross language barriers between participants, and provided a safe and fun way for the women to express their views.