Clara Vuletich

Fashion brands as research & innovation labs

19 June 2017 The demands of climate change and the sustainability agenda are turning fashion brands into innovation labs where a scientific paper or NGO report on toxic impacts to ecosystems is read alongside the latest trends forecast magazine. I was recently speaking on an industry panel with representatives from...

Is your fashion business climate neutral?

Climate change and sustainability are firmly established globally as issues that business can no longer ignore. The recent COP21 climate talks in Paris saw global leaders from business and government collectively discuss a set of targets for maintaining or reducing current planetary temperatures. Aside from many debates and discussions about the effectiveness...

Textile Toolbox launches

12 November 2014 The Textile Toolbox online exhibition is launching tomorrow and will include my Inner/Outer Jacket, a hand-quilted and patch-worked jacket, made from silk and wool/linen, with a lining printed with the word for ‘sustainability’ in Chinese, inspired by my trip to Chinese garment factories last year. The group exhibition is the outcome from 3...

Creative Heroines: Elaine Igoe

14 October 2014 Coming across Elaine’s work was like discovering ‘water in the desert’ of academic writing on textile design and how textile designers do design, and think about design. Before I could define and explore a sustainable textile designer venturing into new contexts like the supply chain or local communities for my PhD project, I...

Hand-stitching Systems Thinker

1st October 2014 How is my ‘designerly approach’ to a research project, that is investigating the sustainability of the fashion industry, of equal value to that of a scientist or business researcher? Can a single garment embody the ideas and values I’m trying to encourage? How can this small act support change on a global...

China + the Ethics of Production

4 September 2014 Dear China, I understand you a little better now that I’ve had a few days to process my trip there through textiles and stitch. I understand your sense of beauty, abundance and the rich colour and traditional costume heritage, and I see your extremes of wealth and poverty. I’m also trying to let go...

Creative Heroines: Esther Fitzgerald

27 August 2014 Esther Fitzgerald is a rare textile dealer and a lover of textiles. I wanted to have a conversation with Esther after visiting her home for an ‘open house’ day, where I saw all her treasured textiles and artifacts on display throughout her home. I immediately sensed Esther was a woman who had...

A Whole Self

21 August 2014 “We want an integrated whole human being, not just someone with a brilliant IQ, who can solve things in the textile supply chain; not just somebody who has amazing dexterity at creating new material artefacts; not somebody who is just full of love for the world; but someone who balances and combines...

Creative Heroines Interview series

7 August 2014 The Creative Heroines series is a range of interviews I have been doing with women who inspire me – makers, doers and thought leaders in the fields of fashion, textiles, well being and craft. While my expertise and focus over the last few years has been the environmental and social impacts of...

Textile designers, scientists + sustainability

25 July 2014 In the Spring this year, I was interviewed for the MISTRA Future Fashion Annual report (2013), as one of the PhD students in the research consortium. How can your research contribute to a better textile industry? My research is based in the design discipline not science, and Project 3 is the only...