Designer/industry interface

The transcript from the discussion panel section of this event provides an interesting exchange of ideas around the notion of textile reuse and value. Following on from the exhibition Ever & Again: Experimental Recycled Textiles in October 2007, the Textiles Environment Design (TED) Project organized a one day Textiles Upcycling Symposium at Chelsea College of Art & Design on Friday 18th July 2008. The aims of the Symposium were to engage the audience and invited fashion and interior textile designers in thinking about high quality and innovative recycling practices for the future (‘upcycling’). The morning session featured the work of 12 of the most well known designers working in this field, including Orsola De Castro – ‘From Somewhere’, Kate Goldsworthy, Amy Twigger Holroyd – ‘Keep and Share’, Emmeline Child – ‘Emmeline4Re’, Kerry Seager - ‘Junky Styling’, Cyndi Rhodes – ‘Worn Again’, and Barley Massey – ‘Fabrications’. For the afternoon session invited key participants from industry contributed to an informal panel discussion with the designers and audience, to discuss the potential for shifting these ideas into mainstream and larger scale commercial production. This was chaired by sustainable textiles expert Dr Jo Heeley. The day also included a keynote speech from Professor Marie O’Mahony and a presentation of the outcomes of the three-year research project led by Rebecca Earley, which has involved teaching staff, researchers and students from Chelsea College of Art & Design

Upcycling textiles: adding value through design

The TED/AHRC funded Worn Again project (2005 – 2010) asked twelve designers to create recycled textile products that would have value added to them in the course of recirculation. All the research questions were concerned with exploring new approaches to the recycling of textiles; designing and producing artefacts with strong aesthetic appeal that were contemporary and innovative, and that had improved eco credentials. The project intended to explore both the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ aspects of eco textile design, with the established principles of material and processes being considered, but also the technical and conceptual ideas. This paper reflects upon: the research questions; the research methodologies utilised and developed; and the concepts that were developed by the designers in order to arrive at a definition of the upcycling of textiles, and a set of guiding principles for best practice. The paper concludes with visions for future practice, including the Twice Upcycled work which explores forward recycling concepts for the polyester economy. The research questions were: •Ethical Production - How can designers work with ethical production values and systems to create a recycled textile product? •Technology - How can new engineering technologies be used to create recycled textile products? •Long Life / Short Life, or ‘Fast’ and ‘Slow’ Textiles - How can recycled materials help lengthen and shorten the life of a textile product thereby promoting resource efficiency? •Design Systems and Services - How can new systems and services around textile recycling and recycled products be designed and implemented? •Multifunction and Detachability – How can designers design textiles and textile products that have multiple uses and detachable elements, thereby promoting resource efficiency and product longevity? •Design Activism – How can textile designers redefine and extend their role within the design community and consumer society? The outcomes for the project included textile product prototypes which ‘rethought’ recycling textiles, through innovative practice and good design, often in collaboration with internal and external partners. Some of the prototypes and samples realised the importance of mono materiality, and the role that engineering technologies can have here. New laser applications eradicated the need for glue and adhesives, and achieved surface effects that cannot be created else where. Others realised and demonstrated that multiple lives and recycling can occur and be pre determined. The impacts of digital print, and over printing in sequential stages were also explored. Concepts relating to the ethical, emotional and systemic were integrated during a second ‘redesign’ stage of the project. The designers explored ideas about upcycling rather than recycling, and the project has been recognised as a leading influence in this field, recognising early on how important this approach is in terms of the economic viability of the reuse of textiles. The project explored how the designer is central to textiles ‘upcycling’. The guiding principles derived from the outcomes of the Worn Again project include: the consideration for the hierarchy of recycling; aesthetics and the design of upcycled textiles that are ‘better’ than the original; the generation of alternative and supporting actions; making enlightened material choices; understanding the different implications of using pre consumer and post consumer waste; the design for future recyclability, and if possible, future upcycling; the consideration of monomateriality, detachability, and the incorporation of the aging process; the design of textiles with zero waste; the design of textiles to maximise the benefits of the product; the consideration for scale - small is beautiful, and start local, but think global. A final question emerged late on in the project from the research methodologies that had been developed through group workshops and tutorials for professional designers: How can designers combine eco-design principles, through workshop scenarios, to create new concepts for the creation of upcycled textile products and services? TED’s TEN – design strategies and workshops that promote interconnected design thinking – were the answer, and continue to be a way for TED to communicate and inspire designers at all stages of their careers

Designing for Fast and Slow Circular Fashion Systems: Exploring Strategies for Multiple and Extended Product Cycles

Abstract: This paper reviews work conducted by practiced-based textile design researchers based at the University of the Arts London (UAL) who were part of the multi-disciplinary, Swedish-based Mistra Future Fashion research consortium between June 2011 – May 2015. The objective of the consortium was to research opportunities to advance a more sustainable, yet still profitable, fashion industry. The final stage of the project involved developing practice-based approaches through physical exhibition prototypes, which formed the basis of the project’s online exhibition, The Textile Toolbox (Earley & Goldsworthy, 2014). Here we discuss two of these design prototypes which both explored ‘designing for cyclability’ as a proactive approach to improving the retention of material value within ‘circular fashion systems’. Designing in order to enable fully joined up cycles of material use is the ultimate aim for both approaches, but this ‘speed’ of cycle creates very different challenges on which to make informed and appropriate design choices. The two approaches are deliberately extreme opposites, with ‘short-life’ closed-loop garments explored as complementary to ‘long-life’ user engagement strategies. Both can ultimately be argued to have an ‘extending’ affect on materials in the value-chain; one by keeping products in use over multiple cycles in perpetuity, the other by extending the single use cycle of a product over time. By exploring this polarisation of ‘speeds and needs’ we aim to gain insights into creating an effective circular materials economy, which acknowledges the complex nature of our current and emerging fashion system

Textiles, environment, design (TED): making theory into textiles through sustainable design strategies, pedagogy and collaboration

Abstract The TED research cluster at Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London, is a collective of practice-based design researchers whose main concerns are the consideration of the role that the designer can play in creating textiles that have a reduced impact on the environment and to provide a toolbox of designer-centred solutions. The cluster involves both staff and students in projects that apply ecodesign theories to textiles practice, with the aim of generating artefacts and theories that will aid designers in creating „better‟ materials, products, systems and improved social well-being. This essay uses three recent TED projects to illustrate how some of the TED members are creating new textiles, dialogues, and enterprises that are all inspired and guided by the TED cluster and its open, pedagogic and collaborative structure

Elastic Learning Tools

TEACHING MATERIAL RESILIENCE. Essay for the Cultures of Resilience book

We Shape Our Tools, Then They Shape Us

The artifact is a set of ten cards entitled TED’s TEN, developed by the research group Textiles Environment Design (Chelsea College of Art and Design, UAL), a group of education and practice based design academics investigating sustainability in the textile and fashion industries. When used together, the cards can serve as practical guidelines to examine, survey and highlight the problem of sustainability and the role of designers in change and innovation. They present visual evidence of strategic thinking. Each card identifies a significant, critical area for attention in the lifecycle of the product and suggests a strategy for analysis and change; approach and resolution; consideration and action, acting as a tool to overcome the barriers to improvement. Developed with a focus on textiles and fashion, they have a potential role in generating strategic concepts for the design process generally. They offer a persuasive prototype from design research and are a research tool in themselves, whose relevance becomes clear when used to facilitate design workshops. The cards promote group workshop discussions in game-play and role-play formats. They are offered as a range of entry points for positive research-led engagement from the practical to the idealistic

Postcards from The Edge: Exploring the Edges of Regenerated Fibre Development and Design Driven Material Innovation

In this paper, postcards from the EU funded Horizon 2020 Trash-2-Cash (2015-2018) project - completed by workshop participants – are presented in three tables with a focus on how they contributed to the building of communication channels, shared understanding and methods in this inter-disciplinary consortium work. The Trash-2-Cash project aims to support better waste utilisation, improve material efficiency, contribute to reduction of landfill area needs, whilst also producing high-value commercial products. Novel materials will drive the generation of new textile fibres that will utilize paper and textile fibre waste, originating from continuously increasing textile consumption. The inter-disciplanarity of the participants is key to achieving the project aims – but communication between sectors is challenging due to diverse expertise and levels of experience; language and cultural differences can also be barriers to collaboration as well. Designing easy and accessible, even fun, communication tools are one of the ways to help build relationships. The cards reviewed were used in Prato (November 2015), Helsinki (February 2016) and London (November 2016). This paper concludes with insights for the ongoing development of the project communications work towards the Design Driven Material Innovation (DDMI) methodology, due to be presented at the end of the project in 2018

Design Thinking for Sustainability: A Case Study of a Research Project between Hennes & Mauritz and Textiles Environment Design

In this paper we fuse design thinking and the sociology of translation, particularly Callon's four moments of translation (1986), creating an analytical framework to explore organizational barriers to change towards sustainability in the textile and fashion industry. Drawing on design thinking we propose to add a fifth moment to Callon's framework to highlight the value of iterations or 'overlaps' (Callon, 1986) in processes of change. The paper, which is co-written by a textile design researcher and a PhD student with a background in cultural studies, is based on a case study of a workshop series developed and delivered by Textiles Environment Design (TED) at Hennes & Mauritz (H&M). Based on an analysis and discussion of the workshop series, we argue that design thinking, especially through its use of design tools, has the potential to make the challenges and opportunities related to processes of sustainability change tangible and thus more actionable at individual and organizational level. We further argue that the framework established could facilitate a more nuanced understanding of organizational barriers to change towards sustainability and also bestow the field of design thinking with additional analytical concepts to explore its methods and communicate its potential value to processes of change

What's my textile footprint?

In this presentation Rebecca talked about her textile work, and the development of TED (Textiles and Environmental Design Research Group at Chelsea College of Art). Responding and changing through a need to re-assess her production processes in the 1990‘s, Rebecca made radical changes to her practice and began an extensive exploration of production processes and methods, with a focus on sustainability. The resultant projects have been widely and Internationally acknowledged for their significant contribution and impact to new approaches to the designing and upcycling of textiles. The Crafts Council's launch of the Craft Rallies in 2010 gave a platform to a wide community of makers in the UK. The Craft Rally aimed to be an inclusive, dynamic and inspirational event for makers to exchange information. It was designed by makers, for makers and with makers. It involved a programme of talks, seminars, screenings, discussions, performances, networking and socialising. It asked makers to participate, investigate and celebrate the breadth of approaches within contemporary craft. It asked: Where are we? ... Where are we going from here? How has the meaning of craft changed and developed through time? How can our current landscape offer new and exciting ways of thinking and making today? Do you want to ... ... exchange ideas and experiences with craft makers from around the country? ... explore and articulate ways of thinking and working that are inspirational and engaging, challenging and involving, participatory and revelatory, unexpected and surprising? ... be challenged and inspired to develop your own thinking and practice? ... reflect, assess or embrace your future practice? ... create your space for collaborative thinking, making and action? My role was to design and deliver a workshop session at the London event, and a presentation about Upcycling Textiles at the Sheffield event