MA Textile Design at Chelsea College of Arts is underpinned by sustainable and responsible approaches to design.

Course overview

MA Textile Design encourages transformative, multi-disciplinary and collaborative approaches to design. Socially responsible, culturally inclusive design thinking and sustainable creative exploration are core values that underpin the course.

The course encourages you to take a conceptual and speculative approach. You’ll build on your existing creative practice and skills redefining these within the context of your future career ambitions.

You’ll be encouraged to explore current fields of research and situate your practice in relation to them, for example:

Material and product lifecycles including circular design systems

Climate justice and the environmental impacts of materials and sourcing

Production and use of materials and products

Material and production innovations

Patterns of consumption and behavioural change

Social and racial justice, including ethical labour and associated societal effects

Community engagement and environmental issues

The designer as activist.

The course aims to equip you with skills to develop your design identity and become a proactive designer who can influence, navigate and creatively contribute to textile design futures in the complex global contexts of our time.

What to expect

Combining research and practice: A research-led and practice-based course, underpinned by critical design thinking, where the textile studio is a forum for discussion, study and collaboration.

Teaching and learning environment: Your studies will be focused around a combination of taught sessions and workshops, seminars, tutorials and peer learning activities and self-directed learning.

Emphasis on a self-directed design project: Based on your personal research and design interests, you’ll write your own design project brief in Unit 1 and continue to develop this in depth throughout the course.

An ethical focus: We have a responsibility to contribute towards a better and more sustainable world. Throughout your course, you'll explore climate, social and racial justice and learn how to embed these principles into your creative practice.