Textile Institute World Conference 2012
Posted by Zoe Fletcher on Thursday, June 7, 2012
I was fortunate enough to win the Textile Institute's Sustainability Award at the 'Design Means Business' exhibition, towards the end of last year - the prize was an amazing trip to Malaysia to attend the Textile Institute's World Conference 2012 held in Shah Alam, Kuala Lumpur. It was a great few days with many interesting lectures being held and a great interview with the key-note speaker Jimmy Choo. There was a lovely dinner and awards ceremony where traditional Malaysian dancers took to the stage to entertain us. I then rushed to the airport to meet my two amazing friends Kellie and Lotty, to start our next adventure - Kuala Lumpur - Singapore - Hong Kong - China.
It was an amazing trip - and we managed to cram in so many fantastic trips/visits/places - with the help of my lovely godmother who guided us to China and showed us the most amazing place to buy textiles! I can only begin to list a few of the many things we did - including - visiting the Batu Caves, Petaling Market, Sepang F1 racetrack, fireworks, Seeing fireflies in the mangroves, visiting Malacca, getting the night train to Singapore, A night safari, Orchid gardens and an original Singapore Sling in the Raffles Hotel, night cruise through the harbour. We then flew to Hong Kong, got the train to China, visited Kowloon Park, going on the star ferry to The Island, Stanley beaches, Victoria Peak, Dafen Art Village China, Happy Valley Races, going on a boat to see pink dolphins, Visited Big Budda, the goldfish market, bird market, flower market, ladies market and on the last day - DISNEYLAND HK! Phew - no wonder we were tired!
Traditional dancing at the evening dinner
Meeting with Jimmy Choo
Baby Silverback Monkey
Antiques shop
On the beach in Stanley
Goldfish Market
Sham Shui Po fabric and haberdashery, Hong Kong
Big Budda
Currently undertaking a PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University within the MIRIAD post-graduate department, I am beginning a practice based academic journey into British wool fibres and new technologies within knitwear design.
Graduating with Distinction from a Masters in Fashion and the Environment at London College of Fashion, specialising in hand-knitting and the British Wool Industry,
I have worked on a number of knitwear collections (personal and external companies), whilst freelancing and researching for a number of exciting projects.
My work revolves around the idea of sustainable fashion from a knitted perspective and the different ways to achieve this incorporating the ideas of slow fashion into mainstream society.
I love knitting.
And wool.
And double sided sticky tape.
