A Meditation on the Faces of Circular Textiles Research

To achieve a circular textile industry – one that has closed complex resource loops at all stages of the lifecycle – collaboration is required between diverse stakeholders. Working with people from different backgrounds, cultures, training, professions and with different languages can be extremely challenging, and progress when working together for the first time can be slow. This paper presents one approach taken by the authors who used textile design methods to help build a sense of trust and shared understanding amongst a group of EU project collaborators – scientists, designers and industry participants – during six of the mandatory project workshops which took placeover a 14-month period towards the beginning of the project. Three experiments were conducted using the faces of the participants to create new insights around the roles, knowledge and expertise of the group; as well as being used to form the basis of the first co-created garment for the project.