Molly Nell Coldicott

Threadbare: An Exploration of Textiles through the Lens of Friendship, Sustainability, Circularity and Grief

Textile design is a subject with borders so vast they continually humble me. This project invites the reader to look a little closer at the world of material by taking an autoethnographic approach that spans three main essays:

The first chapter, On Slowness, focuses on the skills that I learnt from my late mother during my childhood summers. It explores topics that meander through natural dyeing and slow craftsmanship and delves into the importance of sharing creative knowledge amongst generations. Throughout these chapters, I have a companion, Katrina Wilde, with me – a fellow textile designer passionately invested in the world of holistic making and natural textile alternatives. 

The second essay, On Toxicity, amplifies textile manufacturing’s darker path by swivelling in-between both the global and the personal as I narrate my experience working for a fabric supplier in Mumbai, ushering a wake-up call like no other. Throughout this piece, I explore the complexities surrounding the synthetic dye markets, and effluent pollution discharged from factories, environmental sacrifice zones, and the human rights abuses that intersect at the heart of the industries production line. 

And finally, the third essay, On Circularity, invites the reader to investigate the concept of circular systems, biomimicry and innovative materials in both the economy and human-centred design practices. By embarking on my journey with cloth, I have uncovered a multitude of options for the future of my industry. Even though the task may seem daunting, this knowledge needs to be disseminated and adopted by a new generation of designers who are fusing their own relationships with fibre.