Textile Design

BA Textile Design at Chelsea College of Arts wants you to take an experimental and creative approach to textile design.

On this course, you'll learn how to design using colour, materials, processes and technologies that are used in textile print, knit, stitch, weave and smart textiles. You’ll develop ideas and expand your thinking through projects. You'll explore responsible and sustainable design, innovation, craft, fashion and the body, interior and exterior spaces, social and collaborative design and design activism.

What you can expect
• Approach: An introduction to knit, print, stitch, weave and smart textiles. You’ll explore these areas to develop new and exciting solutions to design challenges. These include ‘thinking through making’, ‘thinking through designing’, and responsible, innovative and speculative textile design approaches.
• Experimentation: Explore the interaction between emerging technologies and traditional textile processes. Develop your ideas via live projects, prototyping and communicating your design context through storytelling in a wide range of formats.
• Climate, racial and social justice: Environmental and social issues, as well as sustainable and responsible design will be integrated into your learning.
• Critical practice: You’ll experience an integrated approach to practice and theory. You’ll use your own design practice as a starting point to reflect on and situate your work within broader contexts. These will include social, cultural, environmental and historical perspectives.
• A global outlook: Learn about global perspectives and culturally diverse contexts for textiles.
• Research skills: Develop skills in research into different contexts, ideas generation for design and technical skills, supported by leading practitioners in their fields.
• Resources and facilities: These include knit, print and dye, stitch and weave and a dedicated digital textiles suite. Our developing smart textiles lab is equipped with high-lo textile technologies to support onsite design innovation.

Work experience and opportunities
Live projects will enable you to gain industry, material, design and research experience. Live project partnerships include Nike, Zara, Burberry, Piñatex, Khadi London, Blackhorse Atelier Denim, Gainsborough Silks, H&M, Latitude Festival, WGSN, the UAL Climate Emergency Network Carnival of Crisis x Lucy Orta and more. These are reviewed and subject to change, with new partnerships developing continuously.

We offer an excellent range of study exchange opportunities via our European and international partner institutions.

About Chelsea College of Arts
Chelsea College of Arts has a reputation for producing some of today’s leading artists and designers. Our students are encouraged to radically engage with contemporary fine art and design practice. The College offers courses in curating and collections, fine art, graphic design, textile design, product and furniture design and interior design

At Chelsea College of Arts, we look at art and design in a social, cultural and political context. We are particularly interested in the effects of globalisation. This could either be on creative practice itself or a response to it. As an international hub of creative practices, we have a range of partnerships, projects and exchanges that broaden student and staff perspectives and knowledge.

Located in central London, the College's Grade ll listed Pimlico site overlooks Tate Britain and the River Thames. It has excellent workshops, extensive library facilities, a canteen and an onsite gallery, Chelsea Space. The College is home to UAL’s Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN) research centre, the Decolonising Arts Institute and Iniva.

The College’s alumni include Mariko Mori, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Haroon Mirza, Steve McQueen, Rana Begum, Chris Ofili, Margaret Calvert, Mark Wallinger, Thomas J Price, James Richards and Helen Chadwick.