Conference Agenda

This paper explores how textile dialogues can be crafted within material‑driven de-sign processes in the context of increasing environmental pressure on textile re-sources and forthcoming regulations such as the EU Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation. Through observations of professional practitioners and anal-yses of design students’ thesis work, the study investigates how material‑first ap-proaches influence ideation, prototyping and reflection in apparel and textile de-sign. Practitioners naturally engage in reflection‑in‑action, using craft skills to nego-tiate material behavior and technologies, often leading to unanticipated design di-rections. Students, guided by the material‑driven design model for apparel and tex-tiles, deliberately develop similar dialogues, gaining insights into material potential and limitations while strengthening their awareness of resource scarcity. The find-ings suggest that incorporating material‑driven methods early in the design process enhances designers’ “response‑ability” and supports more environmentally respon-sible decision‑making. The study points toward integrating such models more broadly in both design education and professional practice.