Role
Dr Rachael Wickenden teaches across the BA Textile Design, MA Textile Design Innovation and BSc Product Design courses. She is a specialist in smart and functional textiles, woven textile design, sustainability and textile engineering and has a keen interest in interdisciplinary collaboration.
Career overview
Rachael has over 10 years' industry experience working in the UK and abroad for multinational textile companies as a designer and engineer developing automotive, transport and contract interior textiles. She has worked with a broad range of materials, textile constructions and surface design techniques, including weaving carbon fibre, warp knitting, embossing, high-frequency welding, laser treatment, embroidery, positioned stitching and thermal bonding. Her M3C funded PhD, awarded in 2021, critically examined the design process for E-textiles and explored novel approaches to designing with emerging textile technologies.
Research areas
- Smart, electronic and functional textiles
- Sustainable fashion, textile and product design
- User centred and participatory textile and fashion design research
External activity
Member of:
- The Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion
- The Design Research Society
- The Society for Research into Higher Education
Publications
Hardy, D., Wickenden, R. and McLaren, A. (2020) ‘Electronic Textile Reparability’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 276(124328), pp. 1–10. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.124328.
Wickenden, R., McLaren, A. and Hardy, D. (2019) ‘Electronic Textiles and Product Lifetimes: Teardowns’, in 3rd PLATE 2019 Conference Berlin, Germany, 18-20 September 2019. Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin, pp. 855–862.
Course(s) I teach on
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Undergraduate | Full-time | 2024COURSE
Textile Design - BA (Hons)
https://www.ntu.ac.uk/course/art-and-design/ug/next-year/textile-design
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Undergraduate | Full-time / Sandwich | 2024COURSE
Product Design - BSc (Hons)
https://www.ntu.ac.uk/course/architecture-design-and-the-built-environment/ug/next-year/bsc-hons-product-design
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Postgraduate taught | Full-time | 2024COURSE
Textiles - MA
https://www.ntu.ac.uk/course/art-and-design/pg/next-year/textile-design-innovation
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Postgraduate taught | Full-time | 2023COURSE
Fashion Knitwear - MA
https://www.ntu.ac.uk/course/art-and-design/pg/ma-fashion-knitwear-design
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Postgraduate taught | Part-time (day) | 2024COURSE
Fashion and Textiles - MA
https://www.ntu.ac.uk/course/art-and-design/pg/next-year/fashion-and-textile-design