Australia has a vibrant and thriving textile design industry, spanning fashion, homewares, soft furnishings, floor coverings, and industrial applications.
This category seeks to award one distinctive Australian textile design project completed between January 1st 2020 and April 27th 2021. One-off textile designs, textile collections and textile-based fashion or homewares products will be considered in this category.
One winner in the Textile Design category will be awarded a $2000 cash prize. Up to two commendations will also be awarded.
Applications will be shortlisted by The Design Files team. Shortlisted entries will be assessed by two expert judges, on the following criteria :
Fulfilment of the client brief / project objective
Originality – something we haven’t seen before, something invented from scratch.
Visual Appeal – beauty, boldness, aesthetic appeal.
Craftsmanship – how well does this project integrate skilled craftsmanship, and demonstrate mastery of a craft?
Function – how well does this space deliver the desired functional outcomes?
Sustainability – how well does this project contribute to positive environmental outcomes, with specific consideration of local environmental impact, management and reduction of waste, water and energy consumption?
Visionary thinking – does this project push boundaries, does it achieve something bigger than the intended commercial outcomes?
Bonus points will be awarded to projects with pro bono or community focussed outcomes, and/or projects limited by an unusually tiny budget.
The objective of this textile project was to reduce Nobody Denim’s footprint and reimagine commercial textile waste. Cut offs otherwise destined for landfill were gathered from the denim label’s cutting room floor, and rerouted into the hands of weaver and designer, Georgina Whigham for her label, GEORGE.
Prioritising a slow approach to manufacture and design, each bag is meticulously handmade by Georgina using her traditional four shaft floor loom. Completely left to chance, the colour palette of each piece is determined by whatever denim fabrication has recently been cut at our Thornbury based factory. From scraps to luxury artisanal bag, the process takes Whigham several hours to complete via the laborious process of cutting, layering, weaving, sewing and screen printing. The final result is one of textual, Wabi-sabi brilliance, intended to be used for years to come.
This project provokes a conversation on textile waste, mass production and consumer impact. The woven bags are inspired by and yet completely reject the notion of single-use plastic bags, asking us to question our habits and effects as consumers.
The Aboriginal-owned, female-led childrenswear label collaborated with artist Arkie Beaton on a print depicting floral energy in bright bursts of colour.
Badaam experimented with drape, silhouette and patterns found in the Asia Pacific to arrive at the designs in ‘The Meeting Place’ collection. The symbol and line prints represent ancient knowledge systems passed down through carvings on rock or ground.
Designer Sophie Matson founded textile label Købn in 2017 with a view of bringing the consideration of interior styling to the outdoors. The label’s towels are designed in Melbourne and sustainably crafted by a family-owned mill in Denizli, Turkey.
Luciana Wallis is a textile designer and product developer with over 13 years experience in the Australian textile design industry. She is the design manager at Warwick Fabrics, working with printers, dyers, weavers and suppliers worldwide to create distinctive textile collections.
Inspired by Australian modernism, Oat Studio integrates iconic architectural shapes and lines into a printed textile design.
Badaam experimented with drape, silhouette and patterns found in the Asia Pacific to arrive at the designs in ‘The Meeting Place’ collection. The symbol and line prints represent ancient knowledge systems passed down through carvings on rock or ground.
Paire socks are made from a hybrid wool-cotton fabric that combines the comfort of the former with the durability of the latter.
Working with their partner weavers in Argentina’s Andean mountains, Pampa produced a collection of rug designs inspired by the moon and sun. These celestial bodies are re-cast as universal symbols of warmth, vitality and comfort during a year of instability and uncertainty.
The Aboriginal-owned, female-led childrenswear label collaborated with artist Arkie Beaton on a print depicting floral energy in bright bursts of colour.
Created specifically to show at New York Fashion Week in 2020, Tara Whalley’s uplifting fashion collection was inspired by bright botanicals that bookended her 2020 from her honeymoon in Japan to lockdown walks in Melbourne. The 28-piece collection is available in sizes XS to 4xL(ovely).
An ongoing collaboration between Ikuntji Artists and Publisher Textiles sees paintings of Country and Dreaming by artists practising at the Central Desert arts centre screen-printed onto contemporary fashion pieces. Expansion into clothing has opened a new revenue stream for the Ikuntji Artists as well as an opportunity for professional development in garment-making skills.
Combining non-traditional graphic elements with functional comfort, the designs for the ‘Oceanic’ carpet collection by GH Commercial are inspired by ocean ecosystems in the Great Barrier Reef and the Tasman and Coral seas.
Curio blankets are woven responsibly in ethical Melbourne knitting factories from consciously selected Australian merino wool. Each one weighs approximately 1.9 kilograms.
Local ceramicist Chela Edmunds of Takeawei collaborated with Geelong Textiles Australia to design a colourful blanket that simulated the process of glazing of clay bodies in the weft of the weave. Unlike symmetrical checks that rely on mirrored elements, the check design is irregular and features large sections of block colour, tonal stripes and small pixelated colour transitions to show the breadth of variation that can be achieved.
Collaborating with local painter Charlotte Alldis, Melburnian fashion label Kuwaii reimagined her colourful painted pieces onto silhouettes from the brand’s decade-old archive to create a collection of wearable ‘walking artworks’.
Using machine-made textile remnants sourced from a neighbouring deadstock merchant and her own wardrobe, Caro Pattle reproduced contemporary domestic objects such as a vase and cup in handwoven form.
Local textile designer GEORGE collaborated with fashion designer Nobody Denim to repurpose denim offcuts from the label’s factory floor into woven tote bags.
Carol Debono from Instyle’s in-house textile design studio created a sustainable, heavy duty commercial upholstery and screen fabric made from locally-sourced and manufactured, sustainable, raw materials. It is suitable for application in workplace, retail, hospitality, education and residential environments.