MADEBACK Festival
Rethinking fashion through what already exists
From October 15 to 17, 2025, the Bovisa Durando Campus of Politecnico di Milano will host MADEBACK, the first festival dedicated to circular fashion. The event is organized by the Department of Design as part of the Fashion & Textile Living Lab “Too Cool to Go Wasted”.
The Festival marks the official opening of the Living Lab’s new space and is part of the initiatives promoted by the PNRR MUSA project – Multilayered Urban Sustainability Action (Spoke 3 and Spoke 5).
MADEBACK was created with the aim of going beyond the linear production paradigm—based on the continuous use of new resources—to promote an alternative vision: the "made-back," a rethinking of making that starts from what already exists. The Festival activates a system of collection, transformation, and restitution of used garments, experimenting with replicable circular models that combine design, practice, and community engagement.
For three days, the Campus opens its doors to the public and hosts a diverse range of designers, artisans, and local services, with the goal of fostering knowledge exchange and activating new collaborative networks. The program is structured around various thematic and operational areas:
7 workshops – three of which precede the festival as moments to engage and activate the community, and four that take place during the event itself – focused on transforming garments collected through two internal collections within the Politecnico community;
3 live demos by artisans and designers, showcasing techniques for repair, regeneration, and customization in real time;
Exhibition gallery with 10 stations, divided into four thematic areas: Reduce, Repair, Upcycling, End-of-Life, presenting materials, processes, and design visions;
Swap Market, where second-hand garments—regenerated or redesigned by workshop participants—are exchanged in an informal and accessible setting;
Daily talks that bring together academia, professionals, and public and private stakeholders, to delve into the festival’s core themes.
MADEBACK presents itself as a collective moment of reflection, dialogue, and inspiration, aiming to generate lasting impact on the local territory. The goal is not merely to add value to the product, but to refocus on making itself: a cultural and operational process based on shared, transformative practices capable of shaping new sustainability models for the textile sector.
For all updates, follow MADEBACK's Instagram profile: madeback_fest