For our season finale, Amber is in conversation with multi-disciplinary artist and designer Aitor Throup, and Andrew Groves, Professor of Fashion Design at the University of Westminster and founder of the Westminster Menswear Archive. The discussion is a deep dive into the conceptual framework behind Aitor’s practice, considering the avant garde at the intersections of football and fashion, the paradoxes at the heart of terrace style, and how racial discrimination is confronted in his designs. It is linked to Aitor’s retrospective in Burnley for the British Textile Biennial this year, titled From the Moor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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1:20:37
Max Leonard and Henry Iddon
Max Leonard and Henry Iddon are in conversation with Amber Butchart about their book, Mountain Style: British Outdoor Clothing 1953 – 2000, and related exhibition at the British Textile Biennial this year. Listen in for discussions on the evolution of outdoor clothing from mountain summit to street, moving from Everest in 1953 to football terraces and rave subcultures, as well as the factors that made this possible, from indigenous Inuit knowledge to the Right to Roam movement and the importance of Lancashire mills. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Dhara Mehrotra and Ninon Ardisson
Amber Butchart talks to artists Dhara Mehrotra and Ninon Ardisson who are both creating work for the British Textile Biennial this year. Tune in to hear them discuss everything from mycelium to slime mould and our potential to learn from these networks, as well as their radical potential for textile futures, biomimicry in design, and the false dichotomy between art and science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Claire Wellesley-Smith and Amber Butchart
Amber Butchart is in conversation with artist and academic Claire Wellesley-Smith, about their co-curated exhibition The Synthetic Revolution. The show looks at the development of the first polyester fibre made from crude oil by-products in Accrington, which was later branded with the name Terylene. They discuss how this local story became not only global but intergalactic in the post-war decades of the 1950s and 60s. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Tania Candiani and Porfirio Gutiérrez
Amber Butchart talks to artists Tania Candiani and Porfirio Gutiérrez about their work centred on cochineal. The cactus-dwelling cochineal insect can be used to produce a bright red pigment, a sacred indigenous colour which was exploited by colonial powers following the Spanish conquest of the area today known as Mexico. This colour transformed European art, but at a great cost. They discuss land, labour and ancestral knowledge through this lens, as well as the conceptual, colonial and economic context and value of art vs craft. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Welcome back to the Cloth Cultures podcast series. For season 4, Amber Butchart speaks to some of the artists, curators and contributors who are exhibiting at the British Textile Biennial throughout October this year, 2025. Tune in to hear discussions on invention and innovation in textile production, from indigenous knowledge to space-age technology, from the earliest form of shelter, the tent, to space suits, and from natural dyes to the first polymers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
UK