October 7, 2026

Imagine standing inside a textile dye lab, watching enormous vats of color swirl around you—not from a lecture hall seat, but from inside the factory itself. That's the learning experience Drexel University's Immersive Philadelphia Textile Trail is delivering to fashion industry and merchandising students.

A pioneering project developed by Professor Chris Baeza and supported by graduate Teaching Assistant Tarun Pathak, the Textile Trail presented to first year students in their Textile Class, used two parallel delivery formats—a large-scale LED wall display and VR headsets—to give students immersive access to Philadelphia's textile manufacturing ecosystem. The pilot classroom session, conducted in Drexel's Immersive Media Studio, compared how students respond to the same factory content across the two platforms, and the student feedback tells a compelling story.

The Project: Making Invisible Supply Chains Visible

The Immersive Philadelphia Textile Trail was developed as part of a the museum innovation fund from the Academy of Natural Sciences to address a persistent challenge in fashion and textile education: how do you give students meaningful, hands-on exposure to manufacturing processes that are geographically distant, operationally restricted, or logistically impossible to visit in person?

The solution, developed using accessible consumer-grade Insta360 cameras and the Kuula Pro platform, captures 360-degree content from three local sustainable manufacturers—a knitting facility, a dye house, and a wool fiber mill. This content is delivered to students either through an desktop experience projected onto an LED wall for large-scale group viewing, or through individual VR headsets for an immersive, first-person exploration.

Pathak, who served as Teaching Assistant during the live pilot session this winter term and contributed to the development of the original experience, described the session's purpose: "The goal was to compare how users respond to navigation, immersion, and spatial storytelling across different platforms inside the studio environment."

Student Voices: Immersion Changes Everything

Across completed student worksheets from the Week 9, a consistent theme emerged: VR does something the LED wall cannot. It puts students inside the space.

"It felt like I was actually there and touring the factory instead of just simply watching a video—it was a much more intimate experience. It really allows you to feel the scale of the machinery and shows how small you really are in comparison to these massive factories." — Fashion Industry student, Week 9 Worksheet

Students described the VR headset experience in strikingly similar terms: a sense of physical presence, dramatically enhanced scale perception, and a deeper emotional connection to the manufacturing process. The knitting facility and dye lab were cited most frequently as the stops that felt most transformed by the medium.

"The dye lab felt the most different in VR because you could really see how large the equipment and dye vats were. It felt like you were standing right next to them instead of just watching them from a distance. I also could really look at the poles in the dye vat and envision how the dye comes through it." — Fashion Industry student, Week 9 Worksheet

Another student noted that VR changed her understanding of spatial relationships on the factory floor: "VR allowed me to notice spatial details like how close machines were to each other, the height of the equipment, and the overall layout of the factory floor." She also observed that the LED wall offered its own advantages—a guided, continuous viewing experience that made it easier to follow narration and process flow without the need to actively navigate.

Two Platforms, Two Strengths

One of the most sophisticated findings from the student feedback was the nuanced way students articulated the complementary value of each platform—rather than simply declaring one superior. Several students identified the LED wall as better suited for shared discussion and overall process comprehension, while the VR headset excelled at spatial immersion and scale.

"The immersiveness of the VR tour allowed me to get a better understanding of the placement of the machines and why each was in their designated room... An immersive experience builds passion and interest more than just watching something online because it feels like you are actually in that space and, therefore, a part of the learning process." — Fashion Industry student, Week 9 Worksheet

One student specifically noted that the LED wall excelled at showing the dye lab footage—content that was not available in the VR version—while VR revealed fine details of machine construction, the arrangement of wool storage, and the true scale of industrial equipment. This points to an ideal pedagogical approach: using both platforms in tandem rather than treating them as interchangeable.

A handful of students also candidly noted physical comfort challenges with the VR headset, including eye strain and nausea—honest feedback that will inform future iterations of the experience.

Beyond VR: Connecting the Classroom Experience to Professional Identity

Multiple students reflected on how the experience was transforming their professional vocabulary and confidence. One student wrote: "I am developing knowledge and language so that when I get in those spaces where people know what they are talking about, I can also take lead and build trust among the professionals because now I know what I am talking about."

Students also came away with deeper appreciation for the complexity of textile manufacturing—particularly the dyeing process, supply chain logistics, and quality control at industrial scale. Their lingering questions were themselves a marker of engaged learning: How do dye houses control color consistency across large batches? How do manufacturers catch structural defects before miles of fabric are finished? Why is yarn positioned in specific ways during dyeing?

A Collaborative Innovation

The pilot session reflected a true collaboration across roles. Three MS Digital Media students— Tarun Pathak, Dorsa Charkhian, and Vishal Dahiya —worked alongside Professor Baeza to develop the interactive experience over the winter and spring terms of 2025, with Pathak also stepping into the Teaching Assistant role during live testing. The session was made possible with the generous support of Nick Jushchyshyn, who lent the LED wall, and Harang Kang, who managed its operation on the day.

The project sits at the intersection of real-time technology, immersive storytelling, and experiential learning—applying lessons from Drexel's earlier museum-based VR research (showcased at the Academy of Natural Sciences) to a live classroom context.

Previous research involving 25 survey participants and 14 in-depth interviews found that 75% of participants demonstrated increased knowledge of textile sustainability after the VR experience, and that participants expressed stronger intentions to support local manufacturers.

Professor Baeza's ambitions for this work extend well beyond the fashion classroom. From the outset, the Textile Trail has been designed with replicability in mind—not just for textile educators, but for any faculty member who wants to bring students closer to real-world environments that are otherwise out of reach.

The methodology is deliberately low-barrier. Using consumer-grade Insta360 cameras and the Kuula Pro platform, faculty without any technical background can capture 360-degree content from a partner site, build an interactive tour, and deploy it to students—whether through a VR headset or a large-format display. No specialized software expertise required. No dedicated XR lab. Just a camera, a cloud platform, and a willing community partner.

The potential applications across Drexel's colleges are significant. Wherever geography, cost, safety, or logistics create barriers to experiential learning, this framework offers a path forward.

Baeza is actively interested in collaborating with faculty across disciplines to help them apply this methodology in their own courses—sharing the tools, the workflow, and the lessons learned from the Textile Trail to help other educators create their own immersive experiences.

Why This Matters

The textile and fashion industry accounts for an estimated 8–10% of global carbon emissions and faces persistent challenges around supply chain transparency. Educating the next generation of fashion professionals to understand where and how garments are made—and to advocate for more sustainable practices—requires more than textbooks. It requires presence.

What the Textile Trail demonstrates is that accessible, replicable technology—a consumer-grade 360° camera, and a cloud-based VR platform, —can approximate that presence in ways that meaningfully shift student understanding. The methodology is designed to be scalable across disciplines and institutions, requiring no specialized technical training from educators.

"Actually seeing the factories was a really cool experience which helped to put into perspective how much work is really put into these clothes on the textiles side of the industry. It helps to make me a much more well-rounded fashion professional because of the knowledge I have gained from seeing every step of the textiles process first hand." — Fashion Industry student, Week 9 Worksheet

The next phase of the Textile Trail project will incorporate refined user feedback from this pilot session to improve both the VR and LED wall experiences. The team is also exploring expanded manufacturing partnerships to extend the virtual trail across additional stages of the fashion supply chain.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The Immersive Philadelphia Textile Trail is a research and teaching initiative led by Prof. Chris Baeza, Assistant Teaching Professor at Drexel University. The project was developed with support from Drexel's Museum Innovation Fund in partnership with the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. The classroom pilot session was supported by TA Tarun Pathak (MS Digital Media), with LED wall assistance from Nick Jushchyshyn and Harang Kang. For more information, contact Prof. Baeza at cdb93@drexel.edu.

This article was originally published March 2026.