CCD researchers are world-leading; they are experts in their field who specialise in practice research approaches to the challenges of circular design.

Lead Researchers

Portrait photo of Prof. Rebecca Earley

Rebecca Earley is Professor of Circular Design Futures and co-founder of Centre for Circular Design. Previously she led research initiatives at Textiles Environment Design (TED) at Chelsea between 1999-2017; and was also Director of the Textile Futures Research Centre at Central Saint Martins between 2010 – 2017. Rebecca develops sustainable fashion textile design strategy, curates exhibitions, facilitates workshops and creates original materials, models and prototypes. Since 2011 she has worked with Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) on the Mistra Future Fashion and Trash-2-Cash programmes. In 2007 she was nominated as a Morgan Stanley Great Briton for her contribution to sustainable fashion textiles in the UK. Rebecca is currently working on the HEREWEAR project.

Research Interests

Rebecca’s circular design interests began in the late 1990’s when from her small East London based studio, she worked with recycled PET fleece materials and discarded waste textiles to create award-winning products for over 25 international retail outlets. The unique and innovative technical and aesthetic approaches gradually became strategic design directives. She co-published TED’s The TEN in 2010 after several years of working with industry designers through facilitated workshops and commissioned projects. Her interests in textile recycling, strategy and innovation management means that she relishes working with both large and small industry partners to finds new ways to make circular textile products, services and systems.

Recent Publications

Portrait photo of Prof. Kate Goldsworthy

Dr. Kate Goldsworthy is a designer and academic working to bridge science, industry and design through multidisciplinary & practice-led research. She is Professor of Circular Design and Innovation, co-founder of the Centre for Circular Design at UAL, and a member of the EPSRC Forum in Manufacturing Research. Having worked in the design industry for over ten years, in 2012 she completed the first UK practice-based doctorate focused on ‘designing textiles for the circular economy’. Since then she has continued to explore future manufacturing and recovery contexts, including ten years with UK fibre-to-fibre technology start-up Worn Again. She advises on several industry boards and policy groups andher design work has been exhibited & collected internationally.

Research Interests

Through recent research projects, Mistra Future Fashion (2015-2019) and the EU funded Trash-2-Cash (2015-2018), Kate and the CCD team continue to explore the potential for design to drive a more circular materials economy. This includes devising collaboration tools and methods for engaging stakeholders from all parts of the materials value chain as well as hands-on material and process development. She is also interested in the potential for digitisation and new production models to provide more sustainable future manufacturing visions. Nonwovens production, hi-tech finishing processes and chemical recycling developments are all part of this remit. Her approach is practice-based, always placing making at the centre of her research, and collaborative, often across disciplines or embedded in industry contexts through knowledge exchange projects.

Recent Publications

Portrait photo of Prof. Kay Politowicz

Assisted by the application of The TEN strategies for design, Kay's work for the last ten years has been in developing a ‘wearable paper’ as part of the Mistra Future Fashion sustainability project. Using non-woven material based principally on cellulose wood pulp, Kay proposes pre-emptive design approaches to intractable problems in the fashion industry.

As part of the Centre for Circular Design, Kay has also been engaged in workshops with students and design businesses to create sustainable design solutions. Kay believes physical and psychological barriers to material and behavioural change can be overcome by working within a community of practice.

Research Interests

Kay is interested in the speculative and critical enquiry inherent in design for sustainability, where the connection between philosophical and practical enquiry can be bigger than problem solving. Kay develops physical material prototypes as a way of thinking through making, to test and communicate concepts.

Kay likes to employ a combination of humour, ambiguity and fiction to reflect real life conditions as a provocation for material and social change. Kay aims to design a good product with an intentionally short lifespan in a context of modern life. As complementary to the design of fewer, better products, it reflects the ecology of short and long lifespans in nature.

Recent Publications

Portrait photo of Dr Rosie Hornbuckle

Rosie’s interest in material circularity began when working for Rematerialise, - a collection of materials selected by sustainability criteria - based at Kingston University, London. Whilst at Kingston Rosie also completed an AHRC-funded Collaborative PhD entitled Design and the Material Cycle. In 2015 Rosie joined CCD as Post-Doctoral Research Assistant on the EU H2020 Trash-to-Cash project where she was the lead for the design research task aimed at developing a new methodology for Design-Driven Material Innovation (DDMI). Rosie has recently joined the EU H2020 Pharma-Factory project at London College of Communication (UAL) as Post-Doctoral Research Fellow and continues to work closely with CCD on research outputs, and consultancy projects.

Rosie is currently working on the The Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology (BFFT) project and the HEREWEAR project.

Research Interests

Rosie’s central research interest is the role of designers in enabling socially and environmentally considerate actions. At Kingston this was primarily focussed on the selection of recycled materials, looking at how design skills were used to boundary-span the worlds of design and material supply. Through her Post-Doctoral work Rosie’s research has evolved to look at the role of designers in multi-stakeholder communication, specifically within design-science projects where technology and innovation provide the opportunity for alternative futures. Rosie’s stance is that designers have the potential to enable the collaboration essential for realising more sustainable futures.

Recent Publications

Project Researchers

Portrait photo of Dr Laetitia Forst

Laetitia has a background in textile design, she graduated from ENSAD Paris in 2015, and went on to work as a freelance designer and consultant before starting her PhD research with the Centre for Circular Design. One of her key interest is in the effects of sustainability ‘constraints’ on the creative process, considering how they can be drivers for innovation rather than limitations. She explores the creative textile designer’s approach to these questions through hands on work with weaving, laser cutting and other embellishment techniques. She is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher on two UAL research projects: the Business of Fashion Textiles and Technology (BFTT) project with the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, and HEREWEAR with the Centre for Circular Design. She also runs a UAL online short course on design for sustainability.

Research Interests

Laetitia’s PhD research explored the potential of textile design for disassembly as a circular design strategy to improve material recovery and recycling. This opened up avenues to exploring how textile prototyping can design ahead of the great system changes that need to happen in the industry. Laetitia’s current research work uses scenario building and future thinking as drivers for a holistic transformation of fashion and textile practices. She enjoys facilitating the collaborative development of new concepts in workshops with industry and students, with the material and prototype always at the centre of change making practices.

Recent Publications

Portrait photo of None Rachel Pearce

Rachel has a diverse career spanning over 27 years as a denim consultant. She has worked as a Design Director  (womenswear) at Levi Strauss & Company, a Design Manager at Lee Europe and at the Lee 101 collection. Over the years she has worked with heritage brands such as Barbour, where she designed and developed women denim for the first time in its history and consulted as a Senior Designer for DKNY Jeans based in Singapore. Rachel has a real affinity for fit and silhouette and in-depth knowledge of denim washing and processes.

Rachel is currently working as R&D project lead on the Blackhorse Lane Ateliers - Sustainable Denim Wash & Finishing R&D Lab as part of The Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology (BFFT) programme.

Portrait photo of None Laura Solomon

Laura’s expertise in textile science and technology comes from over ten years working in the textile and apparel industry. Most of this time was spent in textile R&D and manufacturing facilities, working on product development and conducting research with a strong focus on nonwovens and performance textiles for a variety of applications. Laura holds an MSc in Advanced Textiles from the University of Leeds, UK. Research interests focus on new innovations, technologies, materials and processes which are shaping the textile and apparel industry.

Laura is currently working as R&D Project Lead on Ananas Anam - Piñatex Luxe as part of the The Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology (BFFT) programme.

Portrait photo of None Vimasha Jeewandara

Vimasha is a Textile Engineer with over 8 years of industry experience spanning across the whole Textile value chain.  She has successfully led projects in material development, process innovation as well as new business identification. She has delivered projects in collaboration with business partners and leading research institutes in the UK and EU and has always been able to connect academic research with business-driven project objectives. Whilst working at MAS Holdings and Pentland brands, UK, she has been involved in an array of innovation/sustainability projects for major brands such as Nike, Lululemon, VS, Amanté, Speedo, ellesse, and have led and mentored cross-functional teams. She holds a First-class honours degree in Textile Process Engineering from University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka and is also a Chartered Management Accountant.

Vimasha is currently working as the R&D project lead on the Project Plan B as part of the Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology (BFTT) programme

PhD Researchers

Portrait photo of None Emmeline Child

Emmeline is a fashion and textile designer with commercial industry experience. Her practice seeks to create design-led solutions to textile waste in the supply chain. Emmeline has presented her work in the UK and internationally through both exhibits and conferences.

Emmeline is a proficient educator and fellow of the Higher Education Academy for her embedded knowledge around teaching and learning. She is the programme leader for the Fashion and Textiles degree at the University of Northampton, runs workshops and lectures in interdisciplinary subjects inthe UK and internationally, and externally she advises and examines on a number of profiled fashion courses.

Research Interests

Emmeline utilises her commercial and academic experience to profile the barriers and opportunities in the industry pertaining textile waste in its current set-up, while developing guidelines and design prototypes that evidence the possibilities of upscaling product fallout. Emmeline seeks design solutions for dissemination to different market levels of the industry, the outcome of whichwill facilitate manufacturers and brands with the knowledge to embed more circular systems, while offering alternative revenue streams utilising textile waste.

Emmeline’s research seeks to create practical solutions and frameworks to support the stream lining of factory production, aiming to minimise the amount of waste in the process.

Recent Publications

  • Emmeline Child (2017) ‘Developing Models for Successful Upscaled Upcycling of Fashion’, in: Developing Models for Successful Upscaled Upcycling of Fashion. London, UK: Mistra Future Fashion, pp.262–272
  • Emmeline Child (2014) ‘An Auto Ethnographic Review of 48 Pieces from the Emmeline 4 Re Range’, in: An Auto Ethnographic Review of 48 Pieces from the Emmeline 4 Re Range. Huddersfield University
Portrait photo of None Sanne Visser

Sanne Visser is a recently enrolled PhD researcher at the Centre for Circular Design: she a Material Design Researcher who works and lives in London. She graduated from Material Futures at Central Saint Martins in 2016. Over the past few years she has encountered various exhibitions, workshops and talks and presented her work at major institutions worldwide, such as the Textielmuseum (NL), Museu del Disseny de Barcelona (ES), Science Gallery Dublin, Tate Modern (UK) and The Design Museum (UK). Sanne has previously been nominated for various awards including the AFFA Awards, H100 Award, New Material Award and the Katerva Award.

Research Interests

Her main interest as a Design Researcher is material innovation, sustainability and future thinking. The production process is highly important in her practice, where craft meets innovation and systems design. Sanne is mainly recognised for her ongoing research investigating the potential of human hair waste as a new resource. Therefore it has come to no surprise her PhD is within this realm: a practice-led research project concerned with design and the recycling of human hair waste to provide solutions towards a more circular bio economy. 

Recent Publications

Portrait photo of None Loula Mercedes

Loula founded the sustainability collective INMAKULATE in 2005 and has a background in fashion and textile design with an MA in Fashion and the Environment from LCF. Her holistic approach to textiles and processes explores connections between materials, waste and value. Her practice involves coworking by establishing network collaborations within a diversity of people such as indigenous communities, farmers, factories, NGOs and governmental organisations. She has collaborated in various circular economy textile projects in South America to recover sea-plastic waste to produce yarns and has worked with displaced women in Colombia and Peru.

Research Interests

Her practice-based PhD research at Central Saint Martins explores how principles from regenerative agriculture, specifically permaculture, could inform regenerative design methods towards circularity. The study focuses on the holistic and symbiotic principles highlighted by permaculture, to explore the concept of waste as resource, beyond closing the loops of a material’s biological cycles. The research focuses on the agroindustry of coffee in northern and central Colombia. The study examines outputs occurring at the farms and during industrial processing of the coffee cherry to be used as a resource to develop new materials. Loula is interested in highlighting inherent values in the connections between soil, land, people and waste by mapping the coffee waste journey from plants to products.

Associate Researchers: UAL

Portrait photo of None David Cross

David Cross is an artist and Reader at University of the Arts London (UAL). Informing his research, practice and teaching is a critical engagement with ‘sustainability’ in relation to visual culture. Recognizing the conflict between his internationalism and environmentalism, he stopped using jet travel in 2005. In 2012, following the Artist Placement Group, he designated his employment at UAL as an artist’s placement, and tested the separation between artistic and academic activities by proposing that UAL switch banks. With students at UAL, David campaigned for UAL to divest £3.9 million from fossil fuels, which in 2015 it pledged to do. He is now working with staff and students to mobilize around the Climate and Ecological Emergency, connecting aesthetic experiences, critical reflection and transformative action.

Portrait photo of Dr Cathryn Hall

Cathryn is a PhD researcher at the Centre for Circular Design (CCD). She joined CCD previously as the research assistant, on the Mistra Future Fashion programme working on ‘disrupting patterns’ project with Swedish Fashion Brand Filippa K. She is currently undertaking her second year of practice based doctoral study within the field of mechanical textile recycling under Dr Kate Goldsworthy and Professor Rebecca Earley.

Research Interests

Cathryn’s research interests are encompassed by a design-led approach for the mechanical recycling of mixed fibre textiles. Her research focuses on the most problematic issue of mixed fibres which are the product of the textile industry’s consistent use of blended materials - for functional, economic and aesthetic purposes. Taking a systematic view of the industry from both macro and micro levels, within the framework of a circular economy. This research addresses how textile designer-makers might find solutions, across all textile media - non-woven, woven and knit, to create circular fibres of the future

Recent Publications

Portrait photo of Dr Bridget Harvey

Bridget is a maker and researcher, investigating craft processes and concepts through making - what we make, how we make it, and why that matters. She makes and exhibits propositional artefacts, testing and communicating ideas, and is an experienced curator and writer. Bridget is a skilled workshop facilitator, gives talks, and an associate lecturer at Camberwell College of Arts and Chelsea College of Art. She is currently Fashioned from Nature Maker in Residence at the V&A until July 2019.

Research Interests

Through her practice, Bridget explores narrative patinas - use, repair, and memory – and emotional engagement with our possessions. Previous research in to slowness and playfulness in practice led her to investigate repair-making for her AHRC PhD, Repair-Making: Craft, Activism, Narrative which looks at repair both before and after the break, and as a material and social action. Deeply embedded in sustainable thinking, she seeks to understand our (dis)engagement with material cultures, and simultaneously embedding, showing and hiding narrative, she aims to re-story the familiar, and reconstruct the forgotten.

Recent Publications

Portrait photo of Dr Elaine Igoe

Elaine is a Senior Lecturer in Textile Design at Chelsea College of Arts, UAL and has taught at the University of Portsmouth and the Royal College of Art. As an experienced and research-active academic, Elaine has made key contributions to the critical theory of textile design and in 2021, published ‘Textile Design Theory in the Making with Bloomsbury. Elaine has experience of organising and chairing many academic and public facing events to engage discussion and encourage action on sustainability in fashion and textiles. 

Research Interests

Elaine seeks to understand and interrogate design practices in fashion and textiles contextualised within global issues of human rights and climate emergency. By exploring a purpose-led or ‘teleological’ approach to designing, designers are confronted with the systemic impact of their work; both their processes and designed 'things', facilitating an ethical and relational lens.

Portrait photo of Dr Helen Paine

Dr Helen Paine is a practice-led textile design researcher with core knowledge in the field of materials and innovation. Her background is in the field of knitted textiles for fashion, having graduated with an MA from RCA in 2011. Her PhD was part sponsored by industry and used a multi-disciplinary approach to investigate advanced methods for joining textiles with a focus on new functional seaming and surface techniques for stretchy fabrics. Since completing her PhD, Helen has worked in industry and academia on material innovation research projects.

Helen is currently working on the The Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology (BFFT) project.

Research Interests

Helen’s research interests are in the field of future textiles manufacturing and material innovation using a multi-disciplinary STEAM approach. She is interested in the value craft knowledge and making can bring to material innovation and enjoys working with industry to demonstrate applied outcomes for her research. Helen is involved in the research and development of new sustainable processes and materials at Centre for Circular Design, working with industry and academic specialists across the textile product lifecycle.

Recent Publications

Portrait photo of None Laura Knight

Laura is currently an Educational Developer: Climate Justice at University of the Arts London having previously led the Graduate Diploma Graphic Design course at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London.

Outside of UAL, Laura has worked for the Guardian for the past 10 years as a Masterclass Instructor specialising in data visualisation and information design and continues to work as a freelance consultant on data related projects.

Associate Researchers: External

Portrait photo of Dr Marion Real

After participating in a collaborative European research project in circular economy (Retrace), Marion joined CCD on an LDOC award for 2018 to discuss the potential of convivial technologies and local production networks through different circular fashion speed narratives. She has developed strong synergies with different collectives like repairing and upcycling centres, micro-manufacturing projects and more particularly with a French industry/research group, “la chaireBALI” dedicated to explore disruptive material and processes for a future lifestyle industry. She runs design workshops to debate the circular economy’s best practices in territories, or for challenging the future of organizations with original stakeholder mapping and sustainable business model tools. She also delivers more in-depth research interventions using ethnographical and participatory action research techniques.

Research Interests

Marion is a systemic design researcher exploring social representations in circular transitions. Her expertise enlarges user experience design, cognitive sciences, systemic for circular regions, eco-innovation and socially responsible design.

Recent Publications

Portrait photo of Dr Clara Vuletich

Clara is a sustainability strategist and designer who uses design-led methods and creative thinking with brands, designers and consumers to create systemic change for a clean and ethical fashion industry. She has ten years of experience in the space in the UK and Europe and is now based in Sydney, Australia. Clara has consulted on sustainable design training and development to brands including H & M (Sweden) and VF. Corp (US); and has recently established a consultancy business working with Australian fashion brands and retailers on sustainable and circular strategies.

Research Interests

Clara completed a PhD in sustainable fashion/textiles through the MISTRA Future Fashion research programme. She is an Associate Researcher with the Centre for Circular Design (CCD) at University of the Arts London, and has several funded research proposals in development to investigate pre/post-consumer textile waste and end-of-life issues in Australia. Clara also trained as a Kundalini yoga teacher and has developed the Sutra Stitching workshop methodology, that explores the intersection between mindfulness and textile craft. She continues to be interested in where human nature intersects with design and sustainability.

Recent Publications

Portrait photo of None Dr Lucy Norris

Lucy is a social anthropologist with a background in material culture. Her research focuses on cultural perceptions of materials, concepts of value, systems of exchange and recycling economies. She has worked in India, the UK and Germany researching local and global secondary economies, and is currently exploring design concepts for the emerging circular economy and their social contexts. Her research has been published in a range of academic journals and books, and she regularly presents at international conferences, seminars and workshops. Creative collaborations with visual artists have resulted in an accompanying body of work including photography, film and writing, disseminated through exhibitions, screenings and talks.

Research Interests

Lucy has carried out ethnographic fieldwork researching the life-cycle of clothing in Delhi, the textile recycling industry in north India, industrial handloom-weaving cooperatives in Kerala, and the structure of the used textile economy in the UK. Understanding the perceptions of materiality and concepts of value that underpin people’s sense of self and relationships to others is central to her work, and how these are implicated in wider exchange systems. This has led to new research questions concerning the design of products and systems as strategies for sustainability and social engagement with emerging models of the circular economy. These include the scales at which circularity of resources might be implemented, and their implications for how political and economic relations of power will be structured in the future.

Portrait photo of None Phil Hadridge

Phil Hadridge is a consultant and coach who specialises in supporting groups working to achieve a social or public purpose beyond financial profit.   Phil has a degree in Social and Political Sciences from University of Cambridge, where he studied in his mid-twenties, after first working in Africa and practising as a cancer/AIDS nurse ahead of a 15 year career in the Civil Service.  Phil now supports leaders in various sectors develop their external facing partnerships and collaborations, connecting the people leading the many separate and sometimes competing activities and agendas. Phil is known for hosting safe and honest spaces where stakeholders can meet to talk together.

Research Interests

Phil researches and writes about how leaders can harness the unique potential, and overcome the unexpected problems, of ‘noble purpose organisations’ so their work is fully successful.
Phil has over 25 years’ experience as a specialist in Scenario Planning and a range of large group methods.  He continues to explore the best ways to help groups and leaders realise their best results.

Read more of Phil's work here.

Recent Publications

Portrait photo of None Bhaavya Goenka

Bhaavya has been working in the field of Circular Design for the past 4 years, specialising in the reuse and upcycling of industrial textile waste through indigenous craft practices of India, building replicable systems that allow decentralised development whilst creating conversational products through zero-waste practices. Bhaavya enjoys designing fashion and textiles that are environmentally, socially and culturally responsible whilst communicating unique stories that are important to her in an emotionally engaging aesthetic.

Bhaavya is a graduate in craft design with a specialism in textiles from the IICD, India. Bhaavya's subject of study involved design intervention in traditional Indian crafts to bring contemporary context to them and developing products and services with these traditional practices that have greater relevance today. Bhaavya won the gold medal for Academic Excellence (2013-2017) at her graduation, was selected (with scholarship) to be a part of the CLLB (creative management) course from the IIM-A and received the best project award for her submission ‘Iro Iro: crafting fashion out of waste’.
IRO IRO now functions as a zero-waste lifestyle and fashion design practice. IRO IRO has been featured in many reputed publications and received award nominations from esteemed platforms, such as Lakmé fashion week, Lexus design award.

Portrait photo of None Sophie Tendai Christiaens

Sophie Tendai Christiaens is a research partner and advisory board member to Fashion Revolution Zimbabwe, and the co-founder and operations director of SEWN. SEWN is a start-up that offers experiential approaches to teaching localised material sourcing and regenerative design, focusing on circular economy-driven principles of product development. This model uses community education and collaboration as the foundation for a long-term approach to material innovation in the footwear, textiles and apparel sector. In doing so it aims to become an avenue for building new localized green economies. Sophie comes from a law and development background where her introduction to circular design came from researching how the textile and apparel industries across the African continent can make more sustainable contributions to development.

Research Interests

Sophie’s research interests encompass investigating localized notions of circularity in Zimbabwe. By applying a post-colonial and a critical gender theory lens to her research, Sophie focuses on exploring the narrative that circular design is commonplace in a wide range of Zimbabwean communities. This is either through traditional methods of product development that have been passed down through generations or, has developed as a means to navigate day to day realities. With this research Sophie aims to explore the potential these communities present in bringing new perspectives surrounding circular design to the table.

Previous Contributors

Linkedin Profile

Recent Publications

Miriam worked with CCD from 2011 when she joined the team to work on the Mistra Future Fashion project, and stayed to complete her PhD 2015-2019. Her practice reaches beyond disciplinary boundaries and combines approaches from textile design and material science to facilitate material driven change. She has published internationally, consulted on material innovation projects and delivered teaching on sustainable design, material futures and circular design. In 2019 Miriam joined the Burberry Material Futures Research Group (RCA), as Research Fellow in Materials Circularity for Distributed Manufacture.

Research Interests

Miriam's PhD research was funded by the London Doctoral Design Centre (AHRC) and was focussed on innovative processes for regenerated cellulose from textile waste in the context of a circular bioeconomy. To this end Miriam collaborated with a network of leading material scientists including with the Bioeconomy Division at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden and the Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems at Aalto University’s School of Chemical Engineering in Finland. Miriam’s research developed new models for transparency, regeneration and fabrication using recycled and renewable biomaterials.

RCA Staff Profile

Recent Publications

Portrait photo of None Rosa Romeo

A graduate of London College of Communication, Rosa has over eight years of experience working in textile print and processing, manufacturing, logistics and creative project management. Rosa is well versed in the intricacies and injustice of supply chain. Her passion for process has led her to focus her work on sustainability and she engages in crucial discussions on the political nature of textile manufacturing. Rosa is also a maker, exploring political textiles through engaged slow craft.

Rosa is currently working as project lead on the Anna Glover | EcoSilText as part of The Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology (BFFT) programme.

Portrait photo of None Kate Wakeling

Kate has extensive experience working with fashion retailers, brands and factories; establishing ethical trade and sustainability programmes as well as designing and implementing broader sustainability strategies to include all facets of business operations. She has also developed a viable circular business model, implemented Modern Slavery Act policy and established factory improvement programmes.

In 2011 Kate completed her masters in Fashion Futures at LCF, her final project investigated the viability of Fair Trade within the fashion system.

Her early experiences in the industry activated her determination to help bring about the systemic change needed to create a just and sustainable fashion industry.

Kate is currently working as project lead on the Segura R&D project as part of The Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology (BFFT) programme.