Sustainable Fashion students win Regenerative Rathlin Open Design Competition
03 December 2024
The group at the residency. Credit: Future Island-Island
Two students on Falmouth’s online master’s in Sustainable Fashion have recently attended a design and research residency on the island of Rathlin in Northern Ireland, as part of winning an open design competition.
Hannah McIlroy and Niamh Ni Cathain were named winners in the Regenerative Rathlin competition led by Future Island-Island, an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project that aims to bring together communities, academics, and practitioners to collaboratively create design-led research.
The Regenerative Rathlin competition – which posed six different themes for entrants to respond to – was launched with the aim of building an ecosystem of creatives with an interest in using design to tackle the major challenges faced in coastal contexts. Located off the northeast coast of Northern Ireland, Rathlin Island serves as an innovative testbed for exploring how the project’s learnings could be scaled and implemented across Northern Ireland and beyond.
Hannah joined Falmouth’s Sustainable Fashion community with a decade of experience in design and product development within high street retail and garment manufacturing under her belt. Currently working as Sustainability Lead at Cooneen, a Northern Ireland-based company that supplies corporate uniforms, protective wear and military clothing, Hannah was delighted to be named winner of the ‘representation’ theme with her submission ‘Common Yarns’, an edited summary of one of her Sustainable Fashion MA module projects.
The winning projects selected formed part of Hannah and Niamh’s work on the master’s, so I am thrilled that the projects were recognised nationally - Tom Crisp, course leader
All winners and finalists were invited to participate in a one-week residential on Rathlin in September. Prior to this, the group engaged in a two-day workshop in May to build on concepts and collaboratively form briefs for future investigation with a wider network of professionals.
Hannah was part of the ‘materials’ group, which consisted of designers, academics and professionals from across the fashion and textiles industry. She told us: “Our aim for the residential was to engage with the natural materials and resources on the island and consider how we could creatively utilise them in a textile context whilst engaging in conversation with residents and community groups about resource management, circular design and community empowerment and activism.”
Hannah hopes to apply her learnings from the residency to her current role, and to support her ambitions in sustainable textiles research more broadly. She told us: “I am in the final month of my MA studies, with my final project due to be completed by mid-December. Following that, I hope to further develop my knowledge and research in sustainable textiles, circular systems design and regulation in my role.”
Niamh, a designer who focuses on zero waste design and 3D woven garments, submitted a project which aimed to introduce small plots of flax – a once integral part of farming across Northern Ireland – into current farm systems and crop rotations on Rathlin.
With its short growth cycle, strength and ability to grow in coastal environments, the reintroduction of flax would be in line with Rathlin's biodiversity action plan of ‘local actions by local people’. The proposal would also create community connections with other stakeholders across Northern Ireland, as well as aligning with summer festivals taking place on Rathlin to mark the harvest.
Niamh led a weaving workshop as part of the residency, where she shared her weaving skills with the group. She told us: “The week gave me a deeper appreciation of the power and role craft can play in creating community, collaboration and connection to place through material exploration. The time spent connecting with the Rathlin community and all the team through sharing time and conversations whilst weaving, knitting, foraging and walking was invaluable.
“It was also special to have the chance to host a workshop to share the skill of weaving and to have so many participants. I learned so much about materials and innovative ideas from other disciplines and made connections for future collaborations.”
Niamh will directly apply her learnings from the residency to her current work on the master’s, telling us: “On my current module, Reframe, I am exploring a commons based on a multi-disciplinary space to create collaborations and networks. I want to recreate the creative and inspiring community feeling from Rathlin and make it accessible to anyone in Northern Ireland with a passion for exploring place-based natural materials in a collaborative setting.”
Sustainable Fashion MA (Online) course leader Tom Crisp told us: “The winning projects selected formed part of Hannah and Niamh’s work on the master’s, so I am thrilled that the projects were recognised nationally and they were able to apply the knowledge and skills gained on the course as part of the Regenerative Rathlin wool working group. Congratulations to Hannah and Niamh for being selected as two of only six external project participants.”
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