Department
of Design

This degree work places itself within the field of textile design, with an artistic approach. The motive with this work is to introduce Kente cloth as a textile expression to be developed as a contemporary textile technique.

The aim is to explore ways of reinterpreting the West African weaving technique of Kente cloth in combination with the use of recycled toys in order to create contemporary artistic textile designs. The design method consisted of workshops that focused on the deconstruction of the technique and the categorisation of toys.

Experimental sketches on the handloom and jacquard machine were produced. The outcome of this design work is a collection of three handwoven artistic textile designs. Toys’’R’’Cloth engages the viewer to produce more sustainable designs by using recycled toys as material reuse. This work and its design method have the potential to be developed further and applied onto other textile techniques.

Photo: Daniela Ferro