8 books to help you value the breadth of materials and textiles.

How do the materials we use affect us day-to-day? What do we see around us but never quite question what they are and where they came from? Why should we consider textiles with every single thing we do?

Here are some suggested books in order to learn about textiles (and materials). This is a small curation, selected specifically because they speak broadly of the value of materials and textiles, rather than the purpose they were intended for.

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Harvest: The Hidden Histories Of Seven Natural Objects. By Edward Posnett.

Here you are taken across the magical symbiotic origins of particular materials and substances you likely will not have previously considered. Eiderdown, edible birds’ nests, civet coffee, sea silk, vicu?a fibre, tagua (nut) and guano. The writer considers the tenuous balance between conservation of livelihoods, conservation of knowledge, and conservation of a beautiful thing — all of which is difficult in a world where we just want more more more without thought to the future.

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge And The Teachings Of Plants. By Robin Wall Kimmerer.

A scientist talks about spirituality in regards to her search for understanding and acceptance. It speaks of being true to the obvious need for reciprocity we require with each other and with our land. It does look at textiles in the sense of the plants from where certain materials can come from, but its more about the material of our Earth and of ourselves. What makes us us?

The image below comes from an article from The Canadian Encyclopaedia that further explains sweetgrass, and particularly the value of it from indigenous use.

To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out The World? By Lucy Siegle.

First published in 2011, there is for sure some statistics that will now need updating. However, this book and the insight within it was instrumental in my appreciation of nuance of sustainability and ethics. It covers topics around production, including fast fashion, audits and end of life, and also topics surrounding materials, including cotton, exotic skins, fur and leather. It is written from a personal perspective, but there is plenty of data. This book was a key player in my Design Against Fur project considering how we can replicate exotic skins without using the real stuff.

The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History. By Kassia St Clair.

If you are into history and origin, then this is a fascinating insight into how fabrics became an eminent commodity. The book considers topics surrounding our psychological and spiritual need for cloth, for instance with a chapter on Egyptian burials. It considers how cloth enabled colonialism, building of cities, possession of war, for instance with The Silk Road, cotton and Vikings. And it looks at physical feats due to fabric innovation, for example with explorer garb, spacewear and sports fabrics — or even wool in Medieval Europe.

Why Materials Matter: Responsible Design For A Better World. By Seetal Solanki.

A hefty beautiful beast of a book. With its own developed periodic table of materials, it is tongue-in-cheek; it asks us to question what we know about materials and their importance to our daily lives, where we sit within them, and what they’d be doing if we didn’t exist. The book is split into Everyday, Sciences and Expansive, with each segment considering different materials and the practitioners bringing them to life in new ways.

Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys. By Kate Fletcher.

Just as relevant now as it was in 2008 when it was first published. The chapters are holistic, in that they do not consider textiles and fashion as this single entity, but in relation to how the land and how people interact with it. It looks at the index of sustainability for fibres, yet also analyses the use and discard phases of fashion.

It is a book that could come across as naff for the fashion, however, at the time there were very little sustainable brands around, with not that much available certified materials, and there was a 2000s aesthetic abounding. It considered hire and and share models long before anyone started implementing these, so the information is beneficial in appreciating both how slow and fast the systems are changing.

Fibershed: Growing A Movement Of Farmers, Fashion Activists, And Makers For A New Textile Economy. By Rebecca Burgess.

This book is a journal of sorts, of the author Rebecca’s journey to building a local, regional and regenerative wardrobe. The book considers what this looks like, and explains how Rebecca researched and built a movement. It gives insight into certain fibres that fit most beneficially within a local production model, and considers how these fibres, fabrics and garments can be climate beneficial.

My only gripe with it, is that it does portray the outcome as exactly how some consider sustainable fashion to look i.e. drab colours and loose fitting styles, and that’s not for everyone, and subsequently it requires some imagination. Use this book as a stepping stone for a vision of what could be, and alter it to suit your aesthetic. Or, a critical perspective on how the current fashion system needs to change so that our habits and desires can meld to suit these more positive ecological opportunities.

Biodesign: Nature, Science, Creativity. By William Myers.

If you simply want to look at cool stuff, then this is a well-designed coffee table book. Pick a page and learn something new each day. Biodesign is essentially harnessing nature to create a product or service; it should be a more sustainable approach than just designing stuff using nature’ resources as it calls into question how we use stuff, why we use stuff, and what we do with stuff once we’ve finished with it, and through this book you are able to gain a picture of how even the smallest of developments can provide a positive solution.

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Additional resources:

If you’re looking to be inspired by materials, here are some top sources.

Materiom — open source “cookbook” with recipes to make your own biomaterials.

Material Driven — design agency with materials library from a fantastically knowledgeable pair, Adele Orcajada and Purva Chawla.

Material District — really nice digital library of materials, straightforward to use and not jam-packed with information so quite good just for inspiration.

Material ConneXion — focussed on furniture and architectural design, and you do need to register, but they have an advisory service for brands.

Central Saint Martins Material Library — ordinarily you can visit this, but pandemic times say no. Instead you can access the collection via their digital library — if you can get there in person then it is well curated, and materials are always better to handle than on a screen.

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You can find the original article with more images over on my website www.stephaniesteele.co.uk. Originally published January 17th 2022, and then published to Medium on December 13th 2022.

This selection of books is tiny relative to how many beautiful and insightful books there are on materials and textiles, but these are the ones that to me help us to consider the value of these materials — for other sectors, for emotional support, as ways to transmit stories.

However, if there’s one you really think should be here, send me a message or comment! And if you’ve read any of these books, please share your thoughts from them to get more people galvanised to checking them out.