Trash Fashion: Natural & Synthetic Textiles Upcycling

Four TED designers worked together to produce two exhibits to represent the idea of ‘upcycling’ at the Science Museum’s Trash Fashion: Designing Out Waste exhibition. These two exhibits demonstrated design-led concepts about the aspirational re-use of our old clothes and textiles.

The designers were all previously participants on the AHRC funded four-year research project, Worn Again: Rethinking Recycled Textiles, and this work continues to develop some of the final themes. This new work intended to: reuse low quality (high street) and damaged natural and synthetic textiles and clothing, and remake it into high-quality, classic style, designer eveningwear; keep the new items monomaterial in construction; explore a range of technologies as a tool-box for design research practice; and employ ecodesign thinking and collaborative methodologies to generate new design concepts for fashion and textile design.