Fashion and Textile Research Centre

Research in fashion and textile design is concerned with the development of craft and sustainable based methodological frameworks and systems for investigating and extending the scope of new approaches to craft, design, materials and technologies. Participation through working with diverse communities in a global context and extending the concept of the design process through collaborative, inclusive and sustainable practices challenges the status quo of fashion narratives. To date, this has been achieved by synthesising practical and qualitative methods. Craft and sustainability, therefore, are positioned as both discipline and concept, through investigations that address local and global concerns and seek to manifest the changing role and value of creative production in commercial and community contexts.

Research in this area focuses upon global fashion, textiles and dress, as well as the forms and media used to communicate them. The group addresses a wide range of critical and practice-based themes around materials, identities and visual contexts. Fashion and textiles, their production technologies - hand or industrial, their haptic associations, their impact upon our identity and their communication strategies, are intrinsic to our daily human experience and yet their ubiquitous nature belies a complex social, cultural and historical context. Therefore, through exploring this significance, the meaning and value of fashion, textiles and dress as potent symbols of material and visual culture, new understandings are revealed of the values of both ourselves and the global culture we live within.

This research group is engaged with questioning how fashion and textile heritage inform our understanding of design and making, business and industry, communities and narratives, education and culture in both historical and contemporary contexts. Our aim is to deepen an understanding of the importance of the fashion and textile industries in forming local, regional and global identities. Through archives – the Lace Archive and Fashion Map – we reflect upon this material culture and utilise it to inform new interpretations and develop contemporary art and design practices. This interrogation of fashion and textile heritage offers new insights into the values of this heritage to contemporary society for future cultural and economic benefit.

This research group is centred on global and interdisciplinary approaches to marketing and design, focusing on brand image and identity in retail stores including the convergence of physical and virtual environments. Consumer behaviour is also a focus of this group and has included attitudes towards product lifetimes in varying domestic and business environments from both consumer and manufacturing perspectives. Sustainability is at the centre of the discussion about fashion and textiles business research from understanding consumer perspectives to communication and branding strategies.

The Clothing Sustainability Research Group is a multidisciplinary  group which aims to support a more sustainable future for clothing design, consumption, and culture. Members apply theoretical and practical knowledge from design and related disciplines to environmental and social sustainability. In recent years staff have undertaken several research projects on clothing longevity funded by WRAP and Defra, working in close collaboration with leading manufacturers, retailers and brands. One significant output is the Clothing Durability Dozen, an industry toolkit that enables companies to identity what they are doing to make clothes last longer, identify any gaps in their skills and knowledge, and develop innovative approaches tailored to their specific requirements.

The Advanced Textiles Research Group (ATRG) is a world-leading advanced textiles research group with a reputation for designing electronically active wearable technology. Working at the cutting edge of advanced materials across a number of sectors, including fashion, medical, sports, defence and communication applications, their aim is to extend the ability of smart materials to impact on these fields. Their work has led to a number of patents and commercial products.

TOWNSEND, K., SOLOMON, R. and BRIGGS-GOODE, A., 2020. Crafting anatomies: archives, dialogues, fabrications.London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.

FISHER, T. and TONUK, D., 2020. Material processuality: alternative grounds for design research. Design and Culture, 12 (2), 119-139.

SHERCLIFF, E. and TWIGGER HOLROYD, A., 2020. Stitching together: participatory textile making as an emerging methodological approach to research. Journal of Arts and Communities, 10 (1-2), pp. 5-18.

TOWNSEND, K. and SADKOWSKA, A., 2018. Textiles as material Gestalt: cloth as a catalyst in the co-designing process.Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice, 5 (2), pp. 1-24.

TOWNSEND, K., 2017. Emotional Fit: Fashion Salon. Developing a new fashion methodology with mature women. Antenna, Nottingham, 26 April 2017.

TWIGGER HOLROYD, A., 2017. Folk fashion: understanding homemade clothes. London: I.B.Tauris.

EDWARDS, E., 2020. Textiles in bloom: block-print revival and contemporary fashion in Northwestern India. In: S. FEE and S. BECKERT, eds., The cloth that changed the world: the art and fashion of Indian chintz. Newhaven: Yale University Press.

HUNT, K. and HAMBLIN, F., 2020. 'Materials in motion': using film as a method for exploring material properties. In: L. CAMPBELL, ed., Leap into action: critical performative pedagogies in art & design education. New York: Peter Lang.

BRAITHWAITE, N., 2018. Fashion, fantasy, power and mystery: interpreting shoes through the lens of visual culture. In: N. MCCREESH and F. CARLOTTO, eds., Engaging with fashion: perspectives on communication, education and business. At the interface / Probing the boundaries . Leiden: Brill | Rodopi, pp. 205-216. ISBN 9789004382428

BROWN, V., 2018. Cool, sunglasses and the modern woman: icons of the 1960s. Film, Fashion & Consumption, 7 (2), pp. 97-114.

HUNT, K.J., 2018. Eyes, sight and the senses on film and in fashion: crossmodal correspondences and sensorial empathy between Lars von Trier's Dancer in the dark (2000) and Johan Ku's "Selma" collection s/s (2014). Fashion Theory, 22 (1), pp. 31-67.

EDWARDS, E., 2016. Block printed textiles of India: imprints of culture. New Delhi: Niyogi Books.

BRIGGS-GOODE, A., OUTTRAM, T. and DEAN, D., 2021. Heritage and conservation of Nottingham lace through collaboration. Developing partnerships through museums, community, industry and education. FORMakademisk, 14 (2), pp. 1-16.

COLES, R., BRIGGS-GOODE, A. and BAXTER, G., 2020. Principles and pilfering: Nottingham lace design pedagogy. Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture, 18 (1), pp. 12-23.

BRIGGS-GOODE, A. and BAXTER, G., 2020. The archived lace body: contemporary artist designer responses. In: K. TOWNSEND, R. SOLOMON and A. BRIGGS-GOODE, eds., Crafting anatomies: archives, dialogues, fabrications. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.

BRAITHWAITE, N., 2019. Fashionmap: situating style in a shifting landscape. In: L. PETICAN, ed., Fashion and contemporaneity: realms of the visible. At the interface/probing the boundaries (102). Leiden: Brill, Rodopi, pp. 42-68.

BRIGGS-GOODE, A., 2018. Lace Unarchived. Bonington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, 23 February - 29 March 2018.

FISHER, T. and BOTTICELLO, J., 2016. Machine-made lace, the spaces of skilled practices and the paradoxes of contemporary craft production.Cultural Geographies, 25 (1),pp. 49-69.

ALEXANDER, B. and KENT, A., 2020. Change in technology-enabled omnichannel customer experiences in-store. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services: 102338.

ST. JOHN-JAMES, A. and KENT, A., 2019. Clothing sustainability and upcycling in Ghana. Fashion Practice, 11 (3), pp. 375-396.

SIREGAR, Y. and KENT, A.M., 2019. Consumer experience of interactive technology in fashion stores. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 47 (12), pp. 1318-1335.

TOWNSEND, K., KENT, A. and SADKOWSKA, A., 2019. Fashioning clothing with and for mature women: a small-scale sustainable design business model. Management Decision, 57 (1), pp. 3-20.

KENT, A.M., WINFIELD, S. and SHI, C., 2018. Commercialisation and the authenticity of vintage fashion. In: D. RYDING, C. HENNINGER and M. BLAZQUEZ CANO, eds., Vintage luxury fashion: exploring the rise of the second-hand clothing trade. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

BRAITHWAITE, N. and SCHLEMANN, A., 2018. Product service systems: a viable business model for fashion brands? In: C. BECKER-LEIFHOLD and M. HEUER, eds., Eco-friendly and fair: fast fashion and consumer behavior. Sustainability in textiles. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 132-143.

CLAXTON, S. and KENT, A., 2020. The management of sustainable fashion design strategies: an analysis of the designer's role. Journal of Cleaner Production, 268: 122112.

GOWOREK, H., OXBORROW, L., CLAXTON, S., COOPER, T.H., HILL, H. and MCLAREN, A., 2020. Managing sustainability in the fashion business: challenges in product development for clothing longevity in the UK. Journal of Business Research, 117, pp. 629-641.

HARDY, D., WICKENDEN, R. and MCLAREN, A., 2020. Electronic textile reparability. Journal of Cleaner Production: 124328.

SUNG, K., COOPER, T., OEHLMANN, J., SINGH, J. and MONT, O., 2020. Multi-stakeholder perspectives on scaling up UK fashion upcycling businesses. Fashion Practice 12(3), pp. 331-350.

SINGH, J., SUNG, K., COOPER, T., WEST, K. and MONT, O., 2019. Challenges and opportunities for scaling up upcycling businesses – the case of textile and wood upcycling businesses in the UK. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 150: 104439.

SUNG, K., COOPER, T. and KETTLEY, S., 2019. Developing interventions for scaling up UK upcycling. Energies, 12 (14): 2778.

RAHEMTULLA, Z., HUGHES-RILEY, T. and DIAS, T., 2021. Vibration-sensing electronic yarns for the monitoring of hand transmitted vibrations. Sensors, 21 (8): 2780.

SATHARASINGHE, A., HUGHES-RILEY, T. and DIAS, T., 2020. A review of solar energy harvesting electronic textiles. Sensors, 20 (20): 5938.

HUGHES-RILEY, T., JOBLING, P., DIAS, T. and FAULKNER, S.H., 2020. An investigation of temperature-sensing textiles for temperature monitoring during sub-maximal cycling trials. Textile Research Journal, 91(5-6), pp. 624-645.

HUGHES-RILEY, T., OLIVEIRA, C. and DIAS, T., 2019. A knitted multi-junction pressure sensor that uses electrical resistance to determine the applied pressure: development and characterization. Proceedings, 32 (1): 3.

KOMOLAFE, A., TORAH, R., WEI, Y., NUNES‐MATOS, H., LI, M., HARDY, D., DIAS, T., TUDOR, M. and BEEBY, S., 2019.Integrating flexible filament circuits for e‐textile applications. Advanced Materials Technologies, 4 (7): 1900176.

SATHARASINGHE, A., HUGHES-RILEY, T. and DIAS, T., 2018. Photodiodes embedded within electronic textiles. Scientific Reports, 8 (1): 16205.

Angharad McLaren

Carlos Ferreira De Oliveira

Dr Anne Peirson-Smith

Dr Arash Shahidi

Dr Congying (Grace) Guan

Dr Jennifer Bell

Dr Neranga Abeywickrama

Dr Sara Han

Dr Yuri Siregar

Fiona Hamblin

Kalana Marasinghe

Matholo Kgatuke

Nour Nashad

Rachael Wickenden

Richard Arm

William Hurley

Achala Satharasinghe – Development of solar energy harvesting textiles

Bethan Pagett - Natural dyeing in contemporary craft cultures

Cristina Cook - Smart e-textiles - innovation, personalisation and consumption

Elsa Ball - Negotiating fashionable identity through hair and the salon: implications for sustainability and fashion

Emily Rickard - Exploring the use of creative, open-ended knitting as a form of journaling to record emotions, with consideration for mental well-being

Francesca Stocco - Beyond the tourist trinket: reviving textile crafts through modern technology & design

Jureepon Lueakha - An exploration of sustainability for interior design practice of fashion brands in Thailand

Lisa Shawgi - Supporting women living with a disability, specifically Raynaud’s phenomenon, through knitted textile developments

Matholo Kgatuke – Woven light: developing wearable illuminated materials through textile design practice

Nichola Burton - Women and lace: social change and design education in post-war Nottingham

Nishadi Perera - The development of an electronic textile that can measure pressure

Nour Nashed - Encapsulating soldered electronic components for electronically functional yarn

Pam Brook - Modernism and the swimsuit

Richard Arm - Development of polymer-based, soft-tissue surrogate membranes

Rose Marroncelli - The emotional durability of fast fashion: a gendered analysis

Sally Cooke - Home clothes construction in the context of sustainable fashion: design strategies for promoting the development and application of basic sewing skills

Sonia Reynolds - Development of a novel fabric manufacturing method for design practice

Tonya Outtram  - Textile workers in the East Midlands (1980-2005)

Zahra Rahemtulla - Development of electronic textiles for near fall and fall detection