The Future is Here

– Innovations Transforming Fashion

The H&M Foundation and Fotografiska Stockholm, one of the world’s most prominent museums for contemporary photography, are joining forces in the quest to inspire and encourage positive change through the power of visual communication.

The two-year collaboration launched in December 2021 with Fotografiska’s exhibition The Changing Room by visual artist Tobias Gremmler. Alongside it, H&M Foundation opened the inspiration space The Future is Here.

Experience The Future is Here in 3D

The Future is Here was showcased at Fotografiska Stockholm in December. You can experience it from home through our 3D tour. Enjoy!

Better than science fiction

The Future is Here takes us further into the world of innovation and shows how our second skin – clothing – is transforming through the ground-breaking materials and technical solutions that are right now reinventing the fashion industry.

Both physically and digitally, visitors can explore fabrics made of CO2, lab-grown cotton, algae dyes and textiles, leather made of wine leftovers, clothes of food crop waste, and the first machine that can recycle blend-material textiles at scale. It sounds like science fiction, but it’s actual science. These innovations exist and are already in use.

The Future is Here conveys the mission we all share in viewing clothes as valuable resources and instils hope that a planet positive fashion future is within reach because of the power of innovation.

Impact on the planet

In addition to our exhibition, our partner Accenture has estimated the positive impact each of the innovations can have on the planet in 2030, if given adequate support and opportunity to scale. And we are talking no small gains – one of the innovations could save 80,000 million litres of water, which is the same amount 115 million people drink during a year. Another solution could reduce 720,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually, comparable to the total life-cycle emissions of 120 million polyester T-shirts.

See the potential planet impact of each innovation.

The Changing Room – an imaginary ecosystem of our second skin

The Changing Room is one of Fotografiska Stockholm’s most innovative and technically advanced exhibitions ever. It uses mind-blowing visuals to explore humans lack of a second skin and imagines a world where garments can grow directly on our bodies through the endless possibilities of innovation.

“Together we want to increase awareness of environmental and social issues and inspire positive change.”
Elin Frendberg, Executive Director Fotografiska

“There are so many disruptive innovations out there with the potential to change the status quo. Brands, investors, supply chain partners and financial institutions should join forces to help innovators face the big challenges in scaling up from laboratory to production. This would definitely catalyze the shift to a more sustainable fashion industry.”
Valentina Longobardo, VEGEA

”We can’t just focus on doing less bad things, instead we need to focus on how we can change and be radically different as an industry. The biggest opportunity for the industry today is to scale up the solutions and innovations that are out there, that’s how we can create real impact for the planet.”
Edwin Keh, CEO HKRITA