Corporate Team Away Day With a Difference: Discover, Learn, Create

What happens when you take your team out of the office and into a working fashion factory? At Fashion-Enter Ltd (FEL), corporate groups can discover the reality of UK manufacturing, explore sustainability and innovation, and learn to make something themselves.

How about a tour and workshop with an award winning fashion factory?

At FEL’s King’s Award-winning manufacturing facility in London, the learning division – Fashion Technology Academy (FTA) offers corporate experiences that combine creativity, sustainability, innovation and hands-on learning.

For a corporate group, it provides an opportunity to see an industry that everyone knows as consumers, but few ever see from the inside.

See fashion differently

How does a garment actually get made?

What happens between an idea and a finished product?

What skills are involved?

How is technology changing manufacturing?

And what does a more sustainable fashion industry look like in practice?

A behind-the-scenes tour gives teams the chance to explore these questions while seeing garment production, pattern cutting, sampling, digital innovation and repair in action.

It also opens the door to wider conversations about sustainability. Fashion’s relationship with waste, overproduction and consumption is increasingly under scrutiny, making circularity, repair and reuse important issues for businesses and consumers alike. Rather than simply talking about sustainability, participants can explore what it means in practice.

Get hands-on and make something

The experience becomes truly hands-on when participants get behind an industrial sewing machine. No previous sewing experience is required. Experienced FTA tutors introduce the basics before challenging teams to put their new skills to work.

Using T-shirts, deadstock fabrics and surplus textiles, participants can design and create their own upcycled piece, experimenting with techniques such as patchwork, appliqué, reconstruction and visible mending.

Companies can even bring their own branded T-shirts or merchandise to give them a new life.

Creativity brings teams together

There is also something interesting about learning a completely new skill as a group. The usual workplace hierarchy disappears when everyone is trying to master a sewing machine or work out how to turn a pile of surplus fabric into something wearable.

People experiment, ask questions, solve problems and help each other. A creative challenge can add a little competition, with teams working with same materials to create the most imaginative design. Awards can include Most Creative Design, Best Use of Waste Materials, Sustainability Award and People’s Choice.

For groups wanting to embrace the fashion experience fully, a catwalk finale can provide the perfect ending.

Where sustainability meets innovation

The experience isn’t only about traditional fashion skills. Participants can also explore how technology is transforming the industry, with optional sessions around AI, digital fashion and Style3D, alongside discussions about UK manufacturing and the future of the sector.

It is a chance to consider innovation from a different perspective: not just creating something new, but finding better ways to design, manufacture, repair and reuse what already exists.

More than a day out

The FTA’s corporate experiences can be tailored for team away days, employee engagement, ESG and sustainability programmes, innovation events, graduate and early-careers programmes, leadership development and client experiences.

Some organisations may want a shorter creative session; others may choose a full-day experience incorporating the factory tour, circular fashion workshop, technical tuition and team challenge.

The common thread is that participants discover, learn, create and connect. Plus they leave with something they have made themselves in addition to a new perspective on an industry that affects us all.

A team day people will remember

In a workplace dominated by screens, meetings and digital communication, there is something powerful about making something with your hands. For businesses looking for an experience that combines team connection with creativity, sustainability, innovation and a genuine insight into British manufacturing, the FEL factory could be the most unexpected destination for your next team day.

Experiences can be tailored around your organisation, group size and objectives.

To find out more about corporate experiences at Fashion-Enter Ltd and the Fashion Technology Academy in Haringey, London please contact Beth: beth@fashion-enter.com