Fashion, Textiles, and Knitwear Design Facilities
Our fashion, textiles and knitwear design facilities are based in the Bonington building, our dedicated art and design hub. Our lively and creative studios are home to an extensive range of equipment, enabling students to experiment with both traditional and digital practices.
As part of the Nottingham School of Art & Design, our students have access to a diverse range of facilities and equipment including:
- laser cutting and engraving facilities
- dye facilities with a range of dye types available
- digital print facility with digital fabric printers
- embroidery room with domestic machines, industrial machines (Irish and Cornely) and Barudan multihead digital embroidery machines
- knit rooms with domestic and industrial flatbed hand knitting machines and fully-fashioned Shima and Stoll v-bed digital machines
- industry-standard pattern cutting tables and garment production machinery
- hand screen printing, transfer print, and collograph printing
- leather and metal embossing press
- weave rooms with Dobby, George Wood, and TC2 looms, tapestry looms, and Dracup digital jacquard looms
- knitwear hand flat workshops, with Dubied and domestic machines
- Industry-standard power knitting machines
- fabric store
- photography studios
- wood, metal, ceramics, resin and plastics workshops
- computer-aided design (CAD) suites for Adobe and Rhinoceros 3D
You’ll also have access to specialised resources across the Nottingham School of Art & Design and wider University, including:
- library resources relevant for the study of fashion, textiles, knitwear, culture and style
- extensive academic journals and databases for visual research like the Vogue Archive, and Kanopy – which gives access to an amazing collection of contemporary and historical documentary resources for art, design and fashion culture
- The Fashion Map, a unique archive of garments, photographs and interviews representing high street fashion from the last few decades
- The Lace Archive, with over 75,000 samples of heritage lace
Take a virtual tour of our facilities...
What our students think of our facilities:..
"The range of facilities at NTU is great. Working with woven textiles and glass. I was based in the weave workshops and glass studios, but I made use of the many other facilities the University offers. This included the photography studios, resin workshop, the wood and metal workshops and the dye lab. In each facility I found that the technical staff were always willing to help you and share their knowledge."
“There are a vast range of facilities on offer to art and design students at NTU whether this be the large workshop spaces, the on campus art shop or Bonington Gallery that holds many exhibitions and events throughout the year. The wider university facilities are also great, such as the library conveniently located on campus, the large lecture theatres with digital screens and recording facilities, through to the amazing Students Union that not only hosts new and exciting events on a weekly basis but has its own gym, bar and restaurant.”
“I really appreciate that we have our very own fabric store right next to our studios. Not only is it convenient but it’s lovely to have support from the technicians when making fabric choices. It has also been insightful to have workshops and one-to-one sessions with specialists from print design to Computer Aided Design.”
“The knitwear facilities at NTU are unrivalled by any UK university in my opinion. Whilst investing in cutting-edge industry standard technologies, such as the Shima and Stoll power knit machinery, traditional machinery such as the dubied handflat machines are preserved, as they are in industry. The MA studio is a fantastic space; we have our own personal workspace giving us space to explore our projects. It’s great to be surrounded by creative people from different backgrounds as it encourages collaboration and varied inspiration; no day ever seems to be the same in the MA studio!”
"The knitwear studio is amazing and so unique. If you want to study knitwear NTU is the best place to come! The Bonington shop is also super handy for picking up any last-minute bits and bobs. In addition to this the entire bottom level of the library is especially designed for Art & Design which makes it really easy to carry out research to inform your designs."
Fashion, Textiles, and Knitwear Design Facilities
- Subject area: Art and design
- Category: Learning tools and spaces; Teaching facilities