The Catwalk Speaks

An Audio Description Workshop for Fashion

The Catwalk Speaks was a three-hour creative workshop on audio description (AD) for fashion held on Saturday 25th October 2025 as part of Melbourne Fashion Week.

Co-led with Vitae Veritas, an arts access organisation, the workshop was open to all people and celebrated diverse ways of experiencing fashion through developing sensory description and building accessibility skills.

CREDITS

RMIT University researchers: Dr Julie Gork and Dr Belinda Johnson with Research Assistant Rachel Shugg.

Vitae Veritas: Nilgun Guven and lived experience expert Skye de Vent

RMIT University student work: Devorah Raskin, Vassiliki Mihalopoulos, Kiera Llyod, Mary Hall, Yinuo (Annika) Zhan, Phoebe Siu, Theodora Antonopoulos, Alisa Rudkin, Domenique Natoli, Jhamerra Domingo, Ashleigh McGuire, Piper Dalton and Gracie Schumacher, and the teachers from Fashion Design Partnered Project Sang Thai, Deborah Ives and Jessie Kiely.

This workshop was made possible with seed funding from the School of Fashion and Textiles, RMIT University, Australia.

MEDIA COVERAGE

ABC National News, Saturday 25th October 7pm.

A screen shot from the ABC news of Julie giving an interview. She has short brown hair, glasses and wears a navy blue cardigan.
Workshop participants are seated for a discussion between lived experience and accessibility experts.
A rack of garments design by RMIT fashion students, featuring different textures.
A fashion student wearing a blue beret holds a garment woven of strips of fabrics to show a person who is blind.
A woman stands at the end of a make-shift catwalk wearing a corset top and baggy pants. A man stands next to her attempting to describe her outfit as she walks down the runway.
A woman wearing a green capelet, bowler hat, pink top and purple pants proudly holds her head high while starting to walk down the runway. She holds an elongated capsicum walking stick, creating an Alice in Wonderland effect.