Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss how organisational complexities influence the design of circular business models, which have recently been introduced as a new panacea for aligning the interests of business with the needs of the environment.Design/methodology/approach: The Service Shirt, a new garment concept, is used as an illustrative case example for demonstrating some of the organisational complexities of making circular business models operable. The shirt was developed through a series of design workshops for the fashion brand Fashion Alpha.Findings: The analysis highlights multiple challenges emerging when a fashion product with a significantly extended lifecycle passes through different users, organisations and business models. It is concluded that it is difficult to talk about a circular business model (singular) as circular economy solutions depend on the contributions of multiple stakeholders with business models.Practical implications: The findings illustrate how fashion companies interested in the circular economy fundamentally have to rethink conventional approaches to value, organisational boundaries and temporality.Originality/value: Drawing on a case example from the fashion industry, the paper demonstrates the organisational complexities linked to the design of new business models based on circular economy thinking, as these require the coordination of actions between autonomous actors driven by different logics regarding value creation, value delivery and value capture.

(2017). Circular Design Futures. The Design Journal: Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 421-434.

As the field of circular textile design emerges, researchers are questioning what skills designers will need to enable the new systems, processes and products to successfully loop back in to subsequent lifecycles. Circular textile design differs from traditional textile design because it asks the designer of the textile to not only create a new material, but to prioritise the use and end-of-life of the product at the outset. This requires the designer to not only understand more about the processes of production, use and disposal, but much more about the people in these new systems too. In this article, the author draws upon first-hand experience of evolving from the making of circular textiles, to supporting others to make circular textiles. Reflecting on the leadership role of being the Director of a University research Centre (UrC), the article goes in search of a model to generate and share the insights derived from developing from a textile design researcher to a leader. The methods involved a form of triangulation using the recognised attributes for success of a high-performing research unit, along with leadership signposts created by an experienced corporate manager, with reflections by the author on the experiences at the UrC across a 5-year period. Working with input from Baron, the author extended her research practice to include an autoethnographic study, from which questions and key insights are extracted. These insights were then used to redesign the HEFCE model. The transferrable Whole Circles model presented at the end of the article proposes that textile designers seek to ensure they have a good understanding of themselves as people, so that their leadership style is empathic and grounded. It also proposes a 3-dimensional form which supports the growth of other researchers to lead in their own expertise areas.

To achieve a circular textile industry – one that has closed complex resource loops at all stages of the lifecycle – collaboration is required between diverse stakeholders. Working with people from a broad set of backgrounds, cultures, training, professions, with different languages can be extremely challenging, and progress when working together for the first time can be slow. Traditionally, textile designers have been a silent link in the industry supply chain, but with the new challenges that collaboration brings that role is expanding. The research presented here poses this question: could textile designers play a more influential role, by using their unique methods and skills to support new collaborations working towards an industry where waste is more often utilised as a resource? The study focusses on practice-based design research undertaken by the authors –one with a background in textiles and the other in materials communication – to support the formation of effective working relationships between participants in the multidisciplinary consortium project: Trash-2-Cash. A series of experiments were conducted using photography, visual data mapping, silent meditation and drawing to bring participants closer together by focussing on faces. The authors conclude by proposing this approach as a new method for enabling shared understanding in a multi-disciplinary setting, starting with participants’ portraits and using design practice to build connections between the people within the collaboration. The authors suggest that this method inform internal communication and facilitation tools as well as external communication of the collaboration as part of a wider strategy to engage external non-specialist audiences in the work being undertaken. The approach may be of particular interest to research projects where designers are working with other disciplines for the first time.

In this paper postcards from the EU funded Horizon 2020 Trash-2-Cash (2015-2018) project - completed by workshop participants – are presented in three tables with a focus on how they contributed to the building of communication channels, shared understanding and methods in this inter-disciplinary consortium work. The Trash-2-Cash project aims to support better waste utilisation, improve material efficiency, contribute to reduction of landfill area needs, whilst also producing high-value commercial products. Novel materials will drive the generation of new textile fibres that will utilize paper and textile fibre waste, originating from continuously increasing textile consumption. The inter-disciplanarity of the participants is key to achieving the project aims – but communication between sectors is challenging due to diverse expertise and levels of experience; language and cultural differences can also be barriers to collaboration as well. Designing easy and accessible, even fun, communication tools are one of the ways to help build relationships. The cards reviewed were used in Prato (November 2015), Helsinki (February 2016) and London (November 2016). This paper concludes with insights for the ongoing development of the project communications work towards the Design Driven Material Innovation (DDMI) methodology, due to be presented at the end of the project in 2018.

Over the last decade several projects and exhibitions have explored how crafts can play a central role for empowerment through social development, innovation and entrepreneurship. In order to facilitate this, there is a need to explore how craft practices can act as tools for empowerment, both in research and practice.The ‘Power to the People’ track at the European Academy of Design Conference in Gothenburg 2013 tried to answer on this challenge with a series craft-based seminars, each centred on a participant's proposed craft or ‘Paper of Practice’. This formed a series of practice-based seminars that mixed hands-on activities and discussion, centred on and emerging from the very act of doing.