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Concept & Approach

This woven sample collection is looking at past and present Swedish textile consumption habits. Inspired by the traditional Swedish rep weaving technique (ripsväv) TT6, the designer has created a weave structure that transforms textile waste into new durable fabric. Rep weaving was commonly used to utilise the very last scraps of household textile waste TT1.

The weaves are made out of durable TENCEL yarn and discarded clothes donated to the designer by her Swedish friends. Each pattern is inspired by its previous owner.

The background to the exhibit is a lifecycle analysis report on Swedish Textile consumption carried out by the Swedish Environmental Research Institute in 2013. This report states that the average Swedish citizen consumes 15kg of textiles per year, half of these will be disposed of within the first year of use. The majority of discarded textiles in Sweden are currently being incinerated, with only a small portion being reused through charities – of which most are based outside of Sweden’s borders. Sweden is currently not recycling any textile waste. 

The designer proposes an investigation into how a linking system and service might be set in place between Swedish weavers and its consumers TT7/ TT9. According to Sweden’s Textile Craft’s (Textil Hemslöjd) homepage there are 10,000 active weavers located in 600 ‘Weave cabins’ (Vävstugor) around the country.