TEXTILES

Over the past decade or more, The Clothworkers’ Foundation and The Clothworkers’ Company have committed close to £12 million in textiles-related support, with the categories of Academic Research and Innovation as well as Heritage and Conservation accounting for the lion’s share.

From 2017, in order to allow the grants team and trustees of The Foundation to dedicate their full attention to improving the lives of people and communities facing disadvantage, we have consolidated all textiles grant-making within The Clothworkers’ Company.

This decision places textiles alongside trusteeship at the heart of The Company’s mission. Groundbreaking innovation is happening in textiles, and investment in the skills that help bring this innovation to market is required. As a result, we felt it was the right time to reaffirm The Company’s roots in cloth, clarify what direction our enduring interest in textiles should take, and discover how we might achieve the most meaningful impact on the industry.

TEXTILES STRATEGY

The Company aims to:

prioritise British textiles; focus on cloth, rather than costume, and on the manufacture of cloth; direct our involvement in textile design towards talented students at higher-rated institutions, with an interest in people who are studying or possess the ability to convert ideas into a product capable of being manufactured, as well as an understanding of textile technologies; rigorously explore the prospective usage of equipment that we fund; direct our support in heritage towards cataloguing, indexing, storing, conserving, displaying and improving access to important textile collections and archives.

Facing page: University of Leeds, where we support the Clothworkers’ Centre for Textile Materials Innovation in Healthcare as well as Textiles and Colour Science activities.

TEXTILES

ACADEMIC RESEARCH & INNOVATION

In 2012, we helped to establish the Clothworkers’ Centre for Textile Materials Innovation for Healthcare (CCTMIH) at the University of Leeds, with a £1.75 million anchor donation. The Centre works to develop enabling technologies based on advances in textile science and engineering. From bioactive wound dressings capable of speeding up healing rates in the management of diabetic ulcers, to implantable devices capable of promoting the regeneration of bone or skin – the application of textiles in healthcare is a rapidly developing field. Working with nurses, orthopaedic, dental and cardiovascular surgeons to identify unmet needs in current clinical procedures, the CCTMIH team is developing physical prototypes that overcome the performance limitations of existing products.

The Company has also been a principal supporter of the Textiles and Colour Science activities at Leeds University since it was established. We currently provide bursaries for a number of postgraduate students. In addition, subject to access and utilisation criteria, we make capital grants to assist with the purchase of cuttingedge specialist equipment.

In 2019 alone, we funded new equipment at the University of Leeds CCTMIH with a grant of £42,500, and other grants towards the Leeds Colour Summer Internship and PhD projects – as well as a master’s programme at the University of Huddersfield.

Finally, we made a grant of £30,000 to The Prince’s Foundation, supporting Future Textiles at Trinity Buoy Wharf London. The project brings together industry and education in two unique settings, training the next generation with skills for the textile industry and providing a range of no-cost workshops suitable for secondary school teachers, pupils and those seeking employability skills.

TECHNICAL EDUCATION & VOCATIONAL SUPPORT

Breakthrough ideas in textiles – and materials more widely – must

satisfy the demands of sustainability and, where possible, bring a societal benefit for future generations.

For exciting innovation to make the journey from concept to commercial success, laboratory to the marketplace, it is important to nurture the technical skills that enable apprentices, students and trainees to succeed.

In 2019, major new grant commitments included £150,000 to UK Fashion & Textiles to support trade shows and help build the international reputation of the UK textiles industry. In addition, we cofunded the UKFT Young Technician Training Fund with The Drapers’ and Weavers’ Companies as partners. A grant of more than £34,000 went to The Weavers’ Company ‘Entry to Work’ programme to help place 12 young people in the field of textile manufacturing.

The Textile Centre for Excellence received funding again for the Apprenticeship Champion Programme (£22,000 for the final year of our support for the scheme),

Facing page: Future Textiles at Trinity Buoy Wharf. © 2019, The Prince’s Foundation.

Right: UKFT exhibition at Première Vision in Shanghai (2019).

TEXTILES

and another grant of £50,000 for the new Edu4Tex programme, which is designed to bring together schools and sector bodies for the purpose of developing a new approach to the promotion of the textile sector to teachers and young people.

Our successful partnership with creative business incubator Cockpit Arts continues to flourish. Cockpit provides studio space and access to equipment for graduate weavers, enabling them to set up in business. Our support – repeated again in 2019 with a grant of £66,000 (over three years) – will allow a fresh round of applicants to benefit from the facilities and business mentoring programme Cockpit offers.

An extraordinary grant of £26,400 to Fashion-Enter Ltd enabled the social enterprise to purchase equipment and open up its Tailoring Academy in London, which also received support from the Mayor of London’s Good Growth Fund as well as Haringey Council. Meanwhile, we continued funding the Materials Fund and other bursaries at UAL, Central Saint Martins. CONSERVING THE PAST

We have been one of the foremost supporters of textile conservation in the UK. Since the 1980s, we have made capital grants, funded research, and provided bursaries for students at the Centre for Textile Conservation, supporting the Centre to the tune of £1.75 million when it was at the University of Southampton, and now in Glasgow. The Clothworkers’ Centre for the Study and Conservation of Textiles and Fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), Blythe

Facing page: The Tailoring Academy by Future-Fashion Ltd.

This page: Cockpit Arts weaver Jacob Monk with a sample of his work.

TEXTILES

House, was made possible by our £1 million grant towards the £3 million overall cost of the Centre. The Centre allows students, designers, and researchers greater access to the V&A’s extensive collection. The Centre will move to the new V&A East site, in Stratford, in the early 2020s. In 2014, the British Museum opened its World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre. Our £0.75 million grant to the museum went towards the creation of The Clothworkers’ Organics Conservation Studio, housed within the Centre, to bring conservation and scientific research together under one roof, with specially designed studios and laboratories.

In 2019, we provided a grant of £70,000 to support the Manchester Art Gallery’s exciting plans to relocate its clothing, textiles and fashion accessories from Platt Hall to its new city centre gallery. We also awarded £45,000 to the Worthing Museum and Art Gallery, which plans to create a costume research centre covering an important collection of textiles and costume. The Company continues to support textiles conservation internships with Historic Royal Palaces and sponsors an MPhil at the Centre for Textile Conservation.

DESIGNS FOR THE FUTURE

The Clothworkers’ Company funds additional BA/BSc bursaries at the University of Huddersfield in Textiles Practice. For many years, we have also funded MA bursaries at the Royal College of Art (although 2019 is the final year of this latter commitment).

We are long-standing supporters of TexSelect, New Designers, and the Bradford Textile Society Design Competition. Amber Sorayapour won our TexSelect Interiors Prize at Première Vision in Paris this past autumn (marking the final year of our sponsorship commitment to the programme). Clara Leitaõ won the New Designers Printed Textile Design Clothworkers’ Associate Prize. Our four prizes at the Bradford Textile Society Designer Competition were presented to Jessica Dryden (Printed Textile), Evie Brownlee (Knitted Design), Eleanor Newton (Woven Fabric Design), and Katie Dyson (Fabric Designed for Fashion or Interior Products).

Left: Pair of leather gauntlet gloves, circa 1650. © Worthing Museum & Art Gallery.

Facing page: Design by Jessica Dryden (Leeds Arts University), first prize winner for a Printed Textile at the Bradford Textile Society Design Competition 2019.