From the Sector

Source Fashion, a leading responsible sourcing show in Europe, returns to Olympia London from 8–10 July 2025 with the highly anticipated return of its Source Debates Stage, a bold and unfiltered platform tackling fashion’s most urgent challenges and exploring the ideas shaping its future.

Building on the success of its debut, the Source Debates Stage returns this season with a fresh line-up of thought-provoking sessions designed to challenge assumptions, spark honest conversation, and explore new thinking across sustainability, sourcing, innovation, and ethics. Each session invites attendees to engage with real-world issues and bold ideas, offering a dynamic space for collective insight and practical discussion.

Suzanne Ellingham, Event Director of Source Fashion, comments, “The Source Debates Stage is designed to ask difficult questions and encourage collective problem-solving. As businesses are being tested like never before, these sessions are a call to arms provoking honest discussion about what needs to change, and how we get there together.”

Each session on the Debates Stage is interactive by design, encouraging attendees to engage directly with expert speakers. Highlights include:

• AI - Just because we can, does it mean we should? Jade McSorley, Head of Knowledge Exchange (Sustainability) - Centre for Sustainable Fashion (CSF) explores the intersection of artificial intelligence and human-led design. How do we ensure ethics, ownership, and creativity stay intact? 
• Can we decouple profit from volume - or is that a fantasy?  With industry pressures mounting, Simon Platts, Founder - SP&KO Consultancy, discusses whether reducing output can sharpen commercial strategy and increase brand value.
• Rethinking the rules - what would a smarter fashion system look like? Mark Sumner, Textiles Programme Lead – WRAP reimagines fashion’s supply chain from the ground up, asking what it would look like if we priced for reality, not just margins.
• Can luxury fashion really be sustainable? Dax Lovegrove, Consultant - Planet Positive, former Director of Sustainability, Versace, confronts the contradictions at the heart of high-end fashion, examining whether true sustainability can exist amid exclusivity, global supply chains, and opacity.

Set against the backdrop of this season’s overarching theme, ‘Thriving in a Volatile World’, the Source Debates programme is a vital forum for confronting the contradictions and complexities of modern fashion. From navigating uncertain economic conditions to rethinking consumption and innovation under pressure, these sessions are crafted to help businesses move beyond survival mode and uncover bold, practical strategies for long-term resilience.