Forward and Up

Becky Earley and Kate Goldsworthy will be in conversation next Wednesday 5th June at 5: 15pm, in the Lecture Theatre at Chelsea, as part of the CCW Graduate Encounters series.

The presentation will trace the eleven years of conversations and collaborations – Becky and Kate worked on research projects together before Kate's PhD project began in 2005 – and will look at the way in which their ideas evolved along parallel paths, both approaching the recycling of textiles from different creative perspectives.

Kate’s PhD Material Re-creation: forward recycling of synthetic waste for the luxury textile market , uses laser technology to create new textile surface treatments and applications, enabling a monomaterial approach to design for reuse of textiles.

Becky’s Top 100 project work explores the reuse of polyester clothing, and has created new theory for upcycling textiles. Each set of shirts has been subject to experiments which explore ecodesign theory in practice. Technically the project has demonstrated upcycling polyester through the use of: digital overprinting; digital dye sublimation overprinting; heat photogram overprinting; laser etching and welding (with Kate); sonic cutting and slitting; detachability and multifunction; low launder; locality; emotional durability, and most recently co-creation.

In 2008 Becky and Kate created the Twice Upcycled shirts together (pictured) – taking recycled shirts from Becky’s Top 100 project and giving them another new life. The presentation will focus on this work, exploring the way in which the collaboration inspired the researchers to go on to pursue new independent work.

Eco Textiles in Tilburg

The work of several TED members is currently on show in reTHINK!: Eco Textiles at the Audax Textile Museum in Tilburg, Holland.

The show is an overview of the lifecycle of textile production from a sustainability point of view and includes the work of independent designers as well as commercial textile companies from the Netherlands.

Several of us showed pieces that were made during the Ever & Again project, or work that was developed after, in response to all the ideas and new thinking the project generated.

Becky Earley is showing one of her upcycled polyester Top 100 shirts, Mel Bowles is showing her Wallpaper Dress, Clara Vuletich is showing her Love & Thrift coat and Gary Page is showing two items from his wonderful 1-2-5 Collection of dresses.

Kate Goldsworthy, who is also showing a new garment made using laser technology to re-invigorate polyester, is also running a one day workshop on using laser technology for upcycling in January.

There is a good review of the show in Dutch site Design.nl.

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

New work from TED members has gone on show at the Science Museum's new exhibition Trash Fashion: Designing out Waste which is open till March 2011. We attended the launch last week and the exhibition is fantastic!

Aside from the pieces from TED members, there is a new piece from Suzanne Lee's BioCouture project who makes garments from fabric that she 'grows' and a new knitted piece from Sandy Black's Considerate Design project.

There are also some really insightful videos of interviews with some of the designers and their working process.

More images here.

Student Workshops in Hamburg

TED recently gave a presentation and led a design workshop for textile students at HAW college in Hamburg, as part of the Ever and Again: Rethinking Recycled Textiles research project, that Becky Earley has been leading.

Becky, Kate Goldsworthy and Clara Vuletich gave an evening presentation to students titled IMPACT: The Lifecycle of Textiles and the following day a workshop which explored the design themes being explored in Ever & Again, including Upcycling, Ethical Production, Short/Long life, Systems and Services Design and New Technologies.

Students worked towards developing an idea for a 'real-world 'concept, or new business model, which combined some or all of these design strategies.

Conversations on (a) Slow Craft

The TED team recently took part in a small research project devised by Becky Earley, to coincide with the Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution exhibition which is opening at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery in October.

The idea behind Conversations on (a) Slow Craft was to take a group of textile designers and send them on a barge trip along a canal, while they discussed Slow and what it means to them and their practice as textile designers. The TED group were also joined by wallpaper designer Linda Florence, furniture maker David Gates and the whole conversation was audio recorded by artist Russell Martin.

The group were then led through a workshop in Japanese Sashiko embroidery by Emma Neuberg, which is part of her Extended Life textile workshop series.

The idea is for the format to be repeated at the different cities where the Taking Time exhibit tours to. A group of jewellers may all travel together on a horse and cart and talk about Slow or a group of ceramicists on bikes.

The audio recordings and transcriptions of the conversation will be available soon. In the meantime, there are some previous audio recordings of conversations between artists about Slow on the Taking Time website.

TED members at the Cutting Edge

TED members Rebecca Earley and Kate Goldsworthy have been included in a new book called Textile Designers at the Cutting Edge by Bradley Quinn which also includes many of TED's favourite designers!

The book examines the changing face of textile design and explores how recent developments within the field of textiles have presented new technical possibilities, with applications in fashion, architecture and interior design, making textile design a uniquely multi-disciplinary field of innovation and research.

'Cultural Collage' project begins

The TED Project is part of an international collaborative design project called Cultural Collage. The project is led by TED's Visiting Professor Marie O'Mahony, and it will involve designers and design students from the University of Technology (UTS) in Sydney, Australia, Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile and TED designers and students.

Working around the central themes of recycling, mutli-disciplinary practice and cultural collaboration, the designers will be asked to choose a second-hand plastic object and this will then be sent to the group of designers in the next country to be worked on or transformed, while always maintaining its functionality. The reworked object will then be sent to the next group of designers to be worked on for a final time.

Participants will also be asked to keep a 'passport' of their ideas, a sketchbook which records their drawings and thoughts which will be sent on with the accompanying object.

TED recently hosted an introductory workshop with presentations from Marie OMahony, Kate Goldsworthy, Emma Neuberg and Prof. Kay Politowicz. Other participants include textile designer Katherine Wardropper and Nigel Bents, a graphic designer and tutor at Chelsea. We will post regular updates once the participants choose their objects and start working on them.

The final pieces will be exhibited as part of PassionTour, a design festival in Santiago in September 2009.

TED team member at London Design Festival

TED member Kate Goldsworthy was showing the most recent samples from her 'Materials Recreation' research project at 100% Materials at 100% Design last week. 100% Materials is a unique window into the world of materials for designers and architects that are looking to source the building blocks of the products and environments of the future.

Kate has been working on laser welding different recycled materials together and has created some inspiring new designs.

Kate also gave a presentation on Thursday 18th September on her latest upcycled material innovations at the Design Council's Greengaged event, along with other sustainable materialists. Greengaged was a series of events and spaces dedicated to sustainable design, organised in conjunction with [re] design and the Design Council.