Biography
Mariangela Lavanga is Associate Professor of Cultural Economics and Entrepreneurship at the Dept. Arts and Culture Studies at ESHCC, Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is the Academic Lead on Fashion Sustainability Transition at the Design Impact Transition (DIT) platform, part of the Erasmus University ‘Strategy 2024’. Mariangela is also the Academic Coordinator and Head of the Admission Team of the MA in Cultural Economics and Entrepreneurship (consistentely ranked among the top-5 Masters in cultural management/creative industries in the world) as well as co-founder and coordinator of the Minor Fashion Industry (established in a.y. 2016-17 as first interdepartmental and first academic minor on fashion in the Netherlands).
Mariangela is the ESHCC Thought Leader Sustainability, was involved in the EUR faculty wide Sustainability Dialogues and was member of the jury for the ESHCC Engagement/Societal Impact Award in the past two years. She researches and teaches on cultural and creative industries and sustainable urban development with active stakeholders’ engagement. In particular, she focuses on the sustainability transition in the fashion and textile industry, and she enjoys using fashion as a field to engage with transdisciplinary and transformative academic work.
She is currently working in the Horizon Europe project ‘FABRIX - Fostering local, beautiful, and sustainably designed regenerative textile & clothing ecosystems’ with Rotterdam and Athens as case studies. FABRIX adopts a human-centred approach to digital and industrial technologies with an eye for spatial dynamics in a way that would include a more localised and socially inclusive regenerative and innovative manufacturing sector. In parallel to FABRIX, Mariangela has also co-lead the Convergence Resilient Delta project ‘Towards Textile-form Futures’ which focused on on-demand and local production of circular textile-form systems, such as integrated circular micro-factories. In 2018-20 she co-lead and managed the European project RE-FRAME FASHION, supported under the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership Programme of the European Union and evaluated as very good / best practice.
Mariangela is involved as co-promotor in several PhD projects on the topics of sustainable fashion communication, art biennials and decolonial praxis, and the business history of the German fashion industry, together with colleagues from the Media and Communication, and History depts. She was the co-promotor of two PhD candidates on sustainable urban tourism and a value-based approach to cities, and the daily supervisor of six (visiting) PhD candidates working on a broad range of cultural and creative industries.
Mariangela is keynote speaker and guest lecturer in many universities in The Netherlands and abroad, and she is often invited to take part in (inter)national PhD committees (i.e. Erasmus University Rotterdam, Radboud Universiteit, Antwerp University, Polytechnic University Milan/Design School, La Statale University of Milan, Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria).
Mariangela has an international and interdisciplinary background. Before joining the Erasmus University Rotterdam, she worked at University of Amsterdam (UvA), IULM University in Milan, Cattolica University in Brescia, and the European Institute for Comparative Urban Research (EURICUR) at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Mariangela holds a PhD in Communication Economics / Cultural Economics (IULM University, Milan), a MSc in Urban Management (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and a BSc/MSc in Economics (Bocconi University, Milan).
Read about the transition to just fashion in Erasmus Extra & in our latest magazine Just Fashion Transition or watch the episode of Erasmus University Rotterdam - Impact In Sight on Sustainability and Fashion where we talk also about the Minor Fashion Industry!
Feel free to drop an email if you want to explore opportunities for collaboration!
Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication
- lavanga@eshcc.eur.nl
More information
Work
- Shirley Nieuwland, Mariangela Lavanga & Ko Koens (2025) - Using adaptive cycles and panarchy to understand processes of touristification and gentrification in Valencia, Spain - Tourism Management, 106, 1-11 - doi: 10.1016/j.tourman.2024.105011 - [link]
- Carolina Dalla Chiesa, Alina Pavlova, Mariangela Lavanga & Nadiya Pysana (2024) - When fashion meets crowdfunding: exploring sustainable and innovative features of online campaigns - Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 28 (4), 688-708 - doi: 10.1108/JFMM-03-2021-0068 - [link]
- Matilde Ferrero, Martha Friel, Erica Meneghin & Mariangela Lavanga (2024) - Industrial Heritage and Citizen Participation: The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Ivrea, Italy - Urban Planning, 9, 1-21 - doi: 10.17645/up.8220
- Julia De Koning, Mariangela Lavanga & Wouter Spekkink (2024) - Exploring the clothing overconsumption of young adults: An experimental study with communication interventions - Journal of Cleaner Production, 467 - doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.142970 - [link]
- Silvia Blas Riesgo, Mariangela Lavanga & Mónica Codina (2024) - Sustainable consumer behavior in fashion: Enabling and disabling factors - doi: 10.4324/9781032659053-10 - [link]
- Julia M. Wittmayer, Ying Syuan Huang, Kristina Bogner, Evan Boyle, Katharina Hölscher, Timo von Wirth, Tessa Boumans, Jilde Garst, Yogi Hale Hendlin, Mariangela Lavanga, Derk Loorbach, Neha Mungekar, Mapula Tshangela, Pieter Vandekerckhove & Ana Vasques (2024) - Neither right nor wrong?: Ethics of collaboration in transformative research for sustainable futures - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11 (1), 1-15 - doi: 10.1057/s41599-024-03178-z - [link]
- Rhiannon Pugh, Taylor Brydges, Samantha Sharpe, Mariangela Lavanga & Monique Retamal (2024) - The ‘Wellbeing Wardrobe’ as a tool to promote just transitions in the fashion and textile industry - Contemporary Social Science, 19 (1-3), 223-243 - doi: 10.1080/21582041.2024.2341143 - [link]
- Silvia Blas Riesgo, Mariangela Lavanga & Mónica Codina (2023) - Drivers and barriers for sustainable fashion consumption in Spain: A comparison between sustainable and non-sustainable consumers - International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education, 16 (1), 1-13 - doi: 10.1080/17543266.2022.2089239 - [link]
- Sophie Buchel, Aniek Hebinck, Mariangela Lavanga & Derk Loorbach (2022) - Disrupting the status quo: A sustainability transitions analysis of the fashion system - Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy, 18 (1), 231-246 - doi: 10.1080/15487733.2022.2040231 - [link]
- Samantha Sharpe, Taylor Brydges, Monique Retamal, Rhiannon Pugh & Mariangela Lavanga (2022) - Wellbeing Wardrobe: A wellbeing economy for the fashion and textile sector - [link]
- Mariangela Lavanga (15 July 2020) - Fashion at EUR – an interview with dr. Mariangela Lavanga
- Mariangela Lavanga (6 November 2019) - Quoted in the online magazine STRIPE run by Princeton University students -“DIET PRADA: Fashion’s Only Hope in the World of Social Media”
- Mariangela Lavanga (19 July 2019) - Quoted in the online platform FashionUnited – “Modefabriek I Amsterdam Fashion Trade Event Takeaway Trends for and towards Spring Summer 2020”
- Mariangela Lavanga (10 June 2019) - Interview for Vogue Business “Pitti Immagine Uomo’s global evolution by the numbers”
- Mariangela Lavanga (20 March 2019) - Interview for Erasmus Magazine "Your story: Could Erasmus students become the future of fashion?"
- Mariangela Lavanga (18 February 2019) - Quoted in the Book Review by C. Leket "The Fashion Forecasters: A Hidden History of Color and Trend Prediction" (edited by R.L. Blaszczyk and B. Wubs)
- Mariangela Lavanga (1 January 2019) - Quoted in the Book Review by R.C. Tuite "The Fashion Forecasters: A Hidden History of Color and Trend Prediction" (edited by R.L. Blaszczyk and B. Wubs)
- Mariangela Lavanga (1 January 2019) - Quoted in the online platform Modefabriek – “Takeaway Trends for and towards S/S 2020"
- Mariangela Lavanga (21 September 2018) - Quoted in the online magazine EconomistsTalkArt.org “Cultural Economics Education: 15-year Anniversary of the Master in Cultural Economics and Entrepreneurship”
- Mariangela Lavanga (9 September 2018) - Interview for Trouw "Na imagoschade geeft Burberry restpartijen toch een tweede leven"
- Vidhi Chaudhri, Daniel Curtis & Mariangela Lavanga (2023) - ESHCC Societal Engagement Award 2023 (Event) (Chair)
Activity: Membership of committee › Academic - Mariangela Lavanga (2020) - Heritage and Fashion (Speaker)
Activity: Oral presentation › Academic - Mariangela Lavanga (2020) - "Kick-Further Culture.Fashion", online work session with experts from the fashion field in The Netherlands (Participant)
Activity: Organising and contributing to an event › Professional - Mariangela Lavanga (2020) - Invited speaker on "Sustainable Fashion" (Speaker)
Activity: Oral presentation › Professional - Mariangela Lavanga (2020) - European Urban and Regional Studies (Journal) (Editor)
Activity: Editorial work › Academic - Mariangela Lavanga (2020) - Break-out session on Makers, mini symposium SHIT Corona, ESHCC (Participant)
Activity: Organising and contributing to an event › Academic - Mariangela Lavanga (2020) - Work session Fashion programme - Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) in The Netherlands) (Participant)
Activity: Organising and contributing to an event › Professional - Mariangela Lavanga (2020) - Erasmus Sustainability Hub and Rethink Apparel (Participant)
Activity: Organising and contributing to an event › Popular - Ben Wubs, Mariangela Lavanga & Alice Janssens (2020) - Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture (Journal) (Editor)
Activity: Publication Peer-review › Academic - Mariangela Lavanga (2019) - International workshop with scholars from Italy, The Netherlands, Japan and Italian fashion stakeholders (Participant)
Activity: Organising and contributing to an event › Professional
- Mariangela Lavanga, Ellen Loots & E. Nieboer (2018) - Nominated for the Best RAKE (Best Research & Knowledge Exchange) Paper Award "The Portfolio Careers of Designers: some Empirical Evidence from the Netherlands"
- Mariangela Lavanga, Ellen Loots & E. Nieboer (2018) - Nominated for the Best Paper Award in the track Creative Industries Entrepreneurship track "The Portfolio Careers of Designers: some Empirical Evidence from the Netherlands"
TCBL Association
- Start date approval
- January 2024
- End date approval
- January 2027
- Place
- AMSTERDAM
- Description
- Advisory Board member
Master Thesis
- Level
- MA
- Year Level
- MA
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- CC4150
Economics of Fashion
- Level
- Minor
- Year Level
- Minor
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- CC9011
Econ. of Fashion and Sustainability
- Year Level
- MA, MA, Pre-master, MA
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- CC4119