And they also teach…Makeba Lewis, Textile Designer, sustainability consultant and teacher at Central Saint Martins

Makeba Lewis has built a career that bridges creativity, craftsmanship and conscious innovation. From the Royal College of Art to her current role at Central Saint Martins, her work explores the intersections of material experimentation, well-being and heritage techniques.

This interview is part of And They Also Teach, a series by FashionUnited that spotlights professionals in the fashion and design industries who also work in education. We spoke with Lewis during her visit to Buenos Aires, invited by FAD Connection, a global network of creative universities that promotes international dialogue in art, fashion and design education.

What is the most challenging aspect of teaching while being an active professional?

Timing, because with my job I travel a lot. I travel more than I am staying in the studio and teaching now. I'm more into international development and I do a lot of teaching online, just trying to go and do the projects without feeling tired from the work that I am doing as an academic. Then, the second challenging thing, which maybe for me is the most challenging, is doing online teaching. Because, for somebody that is used to always being in a studio, doing things face to face, talking to people, and having things that you can touch and smell and to have all of that taken away and being in front of the screen alone, I find it difficult. I find it can be quite straining and so I would say that it’s more challenging than finding time to do personal work, I still struggle with working on a screen.

In your opinion, is fashion or design education preparing students to succeed or to survive?

Well, students who are investing in their education and then parents who are investing in their child's education, either way they want to know that they can get something out of it. It’s not a luxury to do something for fun and so universities have to prepare you, but I would say they're being prepared through having opportunities to work in the industry for a year and having live projects where they have to work professionally, those things are important. So, I would say it's preparing students to survive, but the fashion industry is a tough one and I don't think people realize how challenging it is until they actually go into it.

What do you think fashion or design education should unlearn?

I'm not sure, I don't know if it's a case of unlearning, maybe evolving and I wouldn't say it's just fashion education, I'd say it's all, don't be too reliant on AI. There are some brilliant tools that have been created. But what I have noticed over the years, in terms of how people are designing and how they're selecting colours, for example, it is often screen based. So even when it comes to combining colours it is a real skill, but I don't think people care about that anymore. Same for designing the silhouettes, having that freedom to sketch. Lots of students don't really know how to do that either, like they have a different way of designing, and that´s okay for them if it works. Now we see so much change in how work is produced, and some things are out of your control. We have to accept that that's how they're doing it now, but it's still a real pleasure when you get those designs that really do look brilliant. When you can see it in the work, so I think we have to respect and work with some of the changes that technology is bringing.

How do you help students find their own voice in a saturated market?

Probably with the same advice I always gave: just be authentic and be yourself. The person who shouts loudest isn't necessarily the one. They might be heard to begin with, but they're not the one necessarily that you should pay attention to. I think it´s important to be humble and to be your authentic self, and you have to be out there, so don't expect things to come to you, you do have to be driven, and you do have to approach people in different ways. There are different ways. So, it's very hard to stand out in the saturated market. I would say being humble and being quietly confident as well.

You have already talked a little bit AI, but do you believe it could completely replace “human participation” in fashion education?

No. Not at all. If you're highly skilled without the use of AI, for example, you can tell whether a painting has been produced by AI or not. My fear is that people aren't going to be as highly skilled as a certain generation of education, so they won't be able to tell, and then AI may well be more dominant. AI, when done in the right way, is a tool that can be used to assist, and it can be useful. I just feel that people are becoming very reliant on it now, and that's the danger. It's quite amazing. But, I don’t think it will take over a lot of industries.

Are there any myths about the fashion or design world that you try to dismantle in your classes?

One, that the fashion industry is cutthroat and full of horrible people. Every industry has those people, but there are also many people that have integrity. They're socially responsible. They care about the work they do, and they care about the people they make work for. There's a whole generation that actually cares about fashion and lifestyle and practice and materials, and you're seeing it in the smaller workforces that they are employing, that there's a family-orientated attitude.

If your students could only remember one phrase or one moment from your course ten years from now, what would you like it to be?

I don't know if it would be a phrase. It might just be to look at a tree and remember that we are part of something much bigger. And that the person who taught you, amongst people, was trying to ensure that we remember that we remind ourselves that we're always part of that, and so we are designing according to that to protect all of that stuff.

Also read the previous episodes of this series: with Diana Murek, Istituto Marangoni Milan; Lucía Cuba, Parsons; Juanita Crary, Istituto Marangoni Miami and Federico Antelo Granero, Istituto Europeo di Design