Christina Wong is known as a 2019 British Wool Prize winner and 2018 semi-finalist of the biggest sustainable fashion competition The Redress Design Award.

 

A young textile designer graduated from the Glasgow School of Art last year and moved to India where she got offered a job at the Indian Mill. For the past six months, Christina is developing her knowledge on textile industry and couldn’t imagine a better environment for it.

 

“At the moment I am witnessing the textile industry in its commercial sense. Keeping up with trends and forecasting consumers’ desires are the biggest challenges. One design might take a few weeks to be developed, from the concept stage, choice of techniques, and development to final execution”.

 

Christina was always interested in textile design regardless of fashion or interiors.

 

“I was always fascinated by how fibres as delicate as cotton were turned into yarn then woven or knitted making a structured piece of fabric. Whether it is textiles for fashion or interiors, it’s the technical research and experiment behind each piece of fabric that interest me the most”.

 

She believes that the textile field is more than just fashion and if we look around we will realise that there are so many things which are made of textiles.

 

“Each of these products carries an environmental impact defined by the earliest stages of design. Unfortunately, our complex supply chain of this capitalist system makes it difficult to have full transparency and consumers have been demanding more products at a lower cost for many years now.

 

However, we live in an exciting generation as more people are becoming aware of the urgency to switch consumer behaviour. This consumer change is opening up opportunities to reinvent the way we make and perceive textiles”.

 

For people within the creative industry, living in a society where people are aware of the changes they make to the planet is the best part as it allows many positive changes.

 

What inspires Christina is the “wave of young designers, innovators and new companies using their creativity to challenge the norms of conventional textiles.

 

Companies such as Food Textiles which uses food dyes on a bigger scale, Holly McQuillan is doing her research on PhD zero waste designs combined with weaving technologies, Kimberly Jenkins a lecturer who introduced the first course about fashion and race at the Parson School of Design, these are some of the inspiring and exciting changes happening right now which gives me hope for a better future in textiles”.

 

Christina focuses on using environmentally friendly materials. While she worked on her graduation project she created woven three-dimensional textiles. It took her a few months to research about the environmental footprint of many materials and the way to source them.

 

“I mainly used wool, cotton and tinsel. In my current job, I don’t have full control on materials which I use but I mostly push for the use of cotton and linen instead of synthetic fibres”.

 

Fast fashion impacts the planet in several ways, beginning with ocean pollution and high emissions. Christina firmly believes that sustainable design should be the only way of designing.

 

“Design should be about problem-solving, and beyond the design of a product, we need to design our society.

 

Each designer should definitely question what kind of society we want to design for. Is it a society that respects and preserves our natural resources? Is it a society that promotes human rights, good working conditions and respect for workers?”

 

However, not only designers, but everyone in our society should consider what clothes consumption can do to our environment.

 

“My consumption patterns are not yet perfect but I do my best to reduce waste and recycle as much as possible. Where it was possible, I changed my products to more environmentally friendly options. My wardrobe is very minimal with timeless pieces. Living in India right now also gives me the chance to buy from independent designers or companies promoting artisanal products”.

 

Christina believes that if everyone will start from the small things, it will make a huge difference towards wasteless fashion.