The textile and fashion industry has had significant technological developments but is currently criticised for its environmental and social impacts and for being a major contributor to waste. The rise of the circular economy (CE) has promoted more sustainable concepts, including the trending of recycling strategies to add value to the textile and plastic waste. However, adding value to products and for users implies technical upscaling and clear communication about the benefits of recycling. This paper presents a systematic literature review (SLR) and explores the state of the art of recycled textiles (RT) and circular fashion (CF) as perceived by humans. The literature review was performed on the basis of journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers using the ScienceDirect (SD) and Web of Science (WoS) databases. The review identified that a significant proportion of consumers from different countries have a basic understanding of sustainable products but that there have been differences in consumers’ attitudes towards sustainable purchase, use, consumption, and post-purchase behaviour. Diverse and even contradictory results occurred concerning the relationships between RT and CF and their perceived product attributes in terms of quality and functionality, as well as social-cultural factors. Manufacturers’ and brands’ perceived values of RT were observed to be influenced by different factors on the basis of the recycling system and cultural values, while designer attitudes towards sustainability were observed to be influenced by external factors. This review contributes to the creation of three main implications in terms of environmental impact and awareness, including actions and concrete proposals for RT and CF.

(2019). Attempts, Failures, Trials and Errors. Notes on an exhibition of failed prototypes and rejected projects. The Design Journal: Vol. 22, Running with Scissors: 13th International Conference of the European Academy of Design, Dundee, 10-12th April, 2019, edited by Louise Valentine, Joanna Bletcher and Leon Cruickshank, pp. 1941-1956.

The present paper interrogates the status and the role of electronic and reactive textiles in domestic contexts. After a preliminary incursion into the modern definition of home and homing, the paper addresses the changes that took place in the domestic space due to the development of digital and communication technologies. Defined as a “sensing home,” as a “communicating domestic space,” smart homes are challenging the traditional understanding of home, defined in terms of intimacy and privacy. In this context, electronic and reactive textiles are asked to overcome the low acceptance of smart homes, through their technical, sensorial, and cultural dimensions. The paper highlights some of the pros and cons in accommodating the latest technological advances in the field of textiles, analyses the way physical computing allows textiles to transform into domotics (robots for domestic environments), presents some of the latest developments on soft architecture fabrication and argues in favor of a much more critical approach to the development of sensors and actuators in textile objects.

The System in the Room is an art installation inspired by mathematician Mihai Botez and architect Mariana Celac’s book The Systems of Spatial Planning, published in 1980 in Romania. Developed and presented in the context of the Utopian Cities, Programmed Societies (2019-2020) project, the art installation reinterprets Botez and Celac’s ideas on housing in a contemporary context using playful and participatory methods. It aims to allow the players to experience and reflect on the housing concepts advanced in the book. The practice of urban planning has changed dramatically since the book was published. Still, it fascinates by its attempt to define urban systematisation as a science that deals with the organisation and complex remodelling of territorial structures and cities to ensure the optimal framework necessary for the development of human activities and the mutual relationship between the environment and its inhabitants. It is one of the first of its sort to address systemic thinking and, in the context of a socialist country, the book points to the role of science (mathematics in particular) in the planning and management of urbanism and economy. By performing and representing housing concepts, we sought to bring back a historical perspective, its resurgence into today’s urban studies debates and the role of citizens and urbanists in today’s political decisions regarding the city. By using games and participatory methods we aimed to critically discuss a specialist book in urban studies and to encourage more engaging perspectives in today’s urban planning decision-making contexts. At the intersection of urban studies, cultural studies, STS, game design and artistic research, this paper takes an urban planning book and its contemporary context as a starting point and discusses an original art installation as a form of critical reading and participatory engagement in the urban planning decision-making process.

This case study is an example of ongoing collaborative initiatives between the Kyoto Prefectural Institute for Northern Industry, Kyoto, Japan working with the international network created by the annual Textiles Summer School (Cassim et al, 2017) in Kyoto initiated and directed by Julia Cassim to explore new weave and product possibilities using the weave, yarn and technology of Tango chirimen crêpe, a traditional kimono fabric from Kyoto and the Japanese Jacquard loom. Written from a technical standpoint, it centres on the challenges of interpreting and realising the concept of the lead designer / educator to create a hybrid silk fabric with a pleated structure with integrated conductive fibre to allow the textile to be used as a capacitive sensor. Inspired by Issey Miyake’s “Pleats, Please” exhibition, this fabric was linked to an electric circuit and became an interactive system that changes pre-recorded sound according to the expansion and contraction of the pleats. The collaboration was facilitated exclusively online with all parties sharing ideas and the results of parallel prototyping through hybrid methods, which we designate as an “interpretative collaboration.” Lectures, instructional and contextual videos created for the Textiles Summer School 2022 (TSS 2022) were provided while academic papers, translated communication, and drawings were used to address the details of the project and supported the dialogue between parties which was facilitated by Cassim and the TSS 2022 team. Apart from the woven samples, a zine-like publication will be available to students interested in understanding the principles of e-textiles capacitance.