Sinéad Travers

Sinéad Travers is a Textile Designer and developer focused on unique fusions of colour, pattern, and texture, creating handcrafted textiles for womenswear fashion and film. Her design practise explores stories of community, craft and culture through a strong textile narrative. Processes such as screen printing, dyeing, and weaving are essential to her designs with elements of surface manipulation and a diverse range of materials and innovative approaches. She has a strong ethos and commitment to using natural fibres, keeping as sustainable a practice as possible, while still ensuring inventive and experimental collections.

Awards and Sponsorship:

The Textile Society postgraduate student award (2021)

The Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust scholarship (2020)

The Leathers Sellers academic grant (2019)

Upcoming Exhibitions:

Grandey’s Place centre for British craft conservation open day 16th-17th July 2021

RECONNECT // DIASPORA

For this MA collection I have been reflecting upon my dual nationality and re-connecting to my Irish heritage by exploring the diaspora of people and craft. I was ultimately inspired by my mother’s journey. Uprooting from Ireland and taking her craft of Aran knitting with her to her new home, she saw craft as a way of weaving her culture into her relocated life in London.

I became fascinated with the craft processes that had been passed down throughout my childhood, unaware of how important a role this became in moulding my own journey in textile design. I began exploring the boarders, burred lines, divides and cultures of each home, ultimately finding connections through traditional materials, patterns, processes, and colours.

Focusing my research toward four key Irish craft textiles; Aran knitting, hand woven Crios belts, Donegal tweed and Ulster patchworking, I found beautiful stories of culture, family and survival to be retold through a textile narrative.