One Man’s Fight To Make Fashion Fair Transparent And Accountable

Dr. Hakan Karaosman did not inherit his authority on fashion from glossy runways or brand legacies. He earned it, thread by thread by starting in a small home where his mother sewed garments to keep the family afloat. Today, as a globally recognized voice in sustainable fashion and responsible supply chain management, Karaosman is using that early proximity to labor and dignity to reshape an industry long defined by opacity, exploitation, and exclusion.

Currently serving as Associate Professor at Politecnico di Milano, with a Visiting Scholar role at University College Dublin, Karaosman stands at the critical intersection of academia, policy, and industry. His research, policy influence, and grassroots collaborations have made him one of the most trusted experts among brands and institutions striving to future-proof their operations, not through superficial ESG statements, but through structural reform.

While his résumé reads like a checklist of global impact and includes co-founder of the EU-backed FReSCH (Fashion’s Responsible Supply Chain Hub), former Associate Professor at Cardiff Business School, scientific partner to the United Nations Fashion and Lifestyle Network, collaborator with brands like Prada and Salvatore Ferragamo, his mission remains deeply personal: to center the garment workers, especially women in the Global South, whose hands and lives hold up the multi-trillion-dollar fashion industry.

From Engineer to a Voice for the Vulnerable in the Fashion Sector

Karaosman’s story defies the sanitized, feel-good narratives often found in sustainability marketing. Trained first as an environmental engineer, he went on to earn an Erasmus Mundus Master’s in energy and environmental management across Spain, France, and Sweden. His Ph.D. is a double doctorate jointly awarded by Politecnico di Milano and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and deeply focused on sustainability integration in luxury fashion supply chains.

In a sector where much of sustainability work is reduced to carbon counting and marketing campaigns, Karaosman champions a people-first approach. Through FReSCH, he has built a global coalition of NGOs, workers, researchers, creatives, and policymakers to address not just climate and compliance, but heat stress in garment factories, governance failures, and the invisibility of labor.

Its policy insights have informed initiatives led by the European Commission, Welsh Government, and UN bodies. Furthermore, its academic work has been downloaded thousands of times and translated into industry tools.

A Voice in Sustaible Fashion And Equity

Karaosman’s work has garnered prestigious accolades from across the sustainability and fashion landscape. Recently, his work also left a lasting imprint on the five-part Forbes series on sustainable fashion, where his voice helped illuminate the systemic reforms needed to achieve real equity and climate accountability in global supply chains. He was named to the Vogue Business 100 Innovators: Class of 2023, received the Greenpeace Italia Voice for the Climate Award, and earned Cardiff University’s Excellence in Sustainability Award. Most recently, FReSCH was honored with the Financial Times Responsible Business Education Award, recognized for transforming academic insights into real-world tools that shape policy and industry practice.

Upcoming Work and Fashion Impact

Dr. Karaosman’s upcoming work at Politecnico di Milano zeroes in on three of the fashion industry’s most stubborn fault lines: social justice, decarbonization, and supply chain resilience. His teaching on sustainability and management in high-end industries incorporates systems thinking, inclusive leadership, and actionable strategy which prepares students not just to enter industry, but to change it.

As part of his broader engagement, Karaosman continues to lead high-impact convenings from Milan Fashion Week to TEDx stages, where garment workers sit at the same table as luxury executives and government ministers. Which is a deliberate restructuring of who gets to speak, shape, and benefit. In an industry too often distracted by aesthetic over substance, Dr. Hakan Karaosman is the rare figure weaving academic rigor, lived truth, and collective action in a system where justice is not just a feature, it is the foundation of sustainability and innovation.