TED Member Clara Vuletich is off to Australia next week and will be giving some lectures and a few workshops at various places in Sydney and Melbourne.

Clara will be running a workshop on 'Digital Craft' techniques to the textile/fashion students at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) on Tuesday 12th October, and then a lecture on the sustainable fashion communities in London, on Wednesday 13th October. This is part of their programme 'Waste in the City', run by Prof. Marie O'Mahony.

Then to Melbourne, and Clara will be giving a lecture on the Upcycling Textiles project at Harvest Textiles and a one day workshop on screen-printed printed wallpaper.

Finally, Clara will head to RMIT and present the TED work to the textiles department staff on Tuesday 19th October.

Clara will be sending regular blog updates of her Australian adventures.

TED Designers Featured in new Eco Fashion Book

Becky Earley and Kate Goldsworthy are featured in Sass Brown's new book about sustainable fashion, titled 'Eco Fashion' and published by Lawrence King this month.

Becky and Kate collaborated on two shirts in 2008, as part of the Top 100 and Ever & Again projects. The over-printed and laser treated polyester garments represent an approach they termed 'twice upcycled'. You can learn more about the project at www.upcyclingtextiles.net, and of course in Sass Brown's new book...

"Brown’s remarkable overview of ecological and socially responsible work deals with the subject of sustainability in fashion in a way that for once does justice to the true diversity of the pioneering and entrepreneurial work done within a field too much engaged in sustaining models and practices from which there may be nothing or little to sustain. It is bold attempt to encourage real change in fashion."

Dr. Clemens Thornquist, Chair of Fashion Design at Boras, Sweden

The audio from the TED Summer Debate that took place back in July is now finished and available here.

Four speakers were asked to argue for and against the motion that 'Sustainable Design in the Real World is just an Educator's fantasy....'.

The four speakers were Kieren Jones (RCA recent graduate), Claire Brass (Seed Foundation), Sandy McLennan (CLASS) and Dr Otto von Busch (fashion hacktivist).

Round Table Discussion at the Ethical Fashion Show, Paris

Becky Earley will be contributing to a round table discussion next Monday, 27th September 2010, at the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris. She will be talking about upcycling textiles and the creative and innovative approaches that the TED designers explored through the Ever & Again project.

"Sustainable management is no longer a marginal phenomenon; it has become the starting point for companies that wish to reposition themselves by fully accepting the responsibilities they carry for the environment and for society...

"Textile innovation is unequivocally compatible with the principles of sustainable management. The round table on innovation aims to prove that the new technologies and the innovative new materials in the field of intelligent textiles that have appeared during the last decade are compatible with the criteria of sustainable management (social and environmental responsibility).”

Dr Isa Hofmann, quoted above, is an expert in the field of new, innovative textile technologies. She will lead the session, and will be joined by:

Florence Bost, textile designer based in Paris

Michael Kininmonth, Lenzing Fibers

Hanne Louise Johannesen, Danish design company Diffus

Francesca Rosella, founder of CuteCircuit

Stijn Ossevort, wearable computing

Karsten Bleymehl, Director Library & Materials Research Material ConneXion Cologne

Alexandre Cappelli, Head of Environment Affairs Department, LVMH

Doris Hartwich, German designer of menswear

and Tzuri Gueta, textiles designer

For those of you who will be in Paris next Monday, the discussion will take place between 2pm and 4pm at -

Cité de la Mode et du Design

34, Quai D’Austerlitz

75013 Paris

TED's D(urability)-Day

D-DAY! Friday 17th September 2010: After being inspired by the Martin Marjiela exhibition in the summer, TED staff decided to put their money where their mouths, or rather hands are, and get eco-creative in the print room at Chelsea. With reference to the beautiful white washed work on show at Somerset House, Kay Politowicz designed a day for TED's practice-based researchers to explore garment durability concepts using print techniques.

Garments: We were asked to dig around the bottom of our wardrobes over the summer, and come into college with clothes and accessories that we no longer wore. Some had stains on them, some were ripped and torn beyond repair, and some were 'freebies' deemed too ugly to wear. Others things that we brought in were too small, too big, too moth eaten, or simply too dull to be loved!

Techniques: We decided to keep it simple - white pigment and opaque binder, silver / gold / white / black foils, flocking paper - and use direct application techniques like hand painting, rollers, and open screens and stencils. The idea was to experiment to find simple, quick, but visually arresting ways to reinvent the clothes.

Outcomes: In the space of a few hours we came up with some really beautiful pieces. The things that caught my eye included the items pictured here...

Frances's unworn grey shirt printed with a stencil with opaque white
Kay's stained orange jumper rollered with glue and then foiled
Clara's plain white summer dress printed with an open screen and then foiled

Watch this space for the next installment - where we explore the ideas further by all remaking a set of identical items from a high street source - the next D-Day will take place in December 2010.

TED member Mel Bowles has some of her lovely digital shibori scarves in the new Lab Craft exhibition, organised by the Crafts Council showing at Tent London next week, 23rd - 26th September.

Lab Craft features 26 makers who combine craft techniques with cutting-edge digital technologies such as rapid prototyping, laser cutting, laser scanning and digital printing. Other designers being shown included Tord Boontje, digital weaver Ismini Samandiou, and one of Mel's recent students
Chae Yong Kim, who works with digital software to develop beautiful, ethereal patterns for wallpapers and fabrics.

For her digital shibori, Mel reinterprates the traditional Shibori techniques using digital media by manipulating complex mathematical graphic geometrics to create light effects, folds and blends.