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A City Stitched Together: London Textile Month 2025

A City Stitched Together: London Textile Month 2025

August 1, 2025
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This September, Selvedge is weaving something new into the fabric of the UK capital. For the very first time, we’re hosting London Textile Month — a citywide celebration of cloth and culture, skill and story. Across London, makers, artists, thinkers, and textile enthusiasts will gather to share what threads them to the world: dye and fibre, memory and tradition, hand and heart.

Whether you’re drawn to textiles for their tactile beauty or the deeper stories they hold, we invite you to join us in turning London into a living, breathing map of textile creativity.

There are so many events to choose from - a vibrant patchwork of demonstrations, workshops, exhibitions, screenings, and studio tours - many of which are completely free to attend. To get you started, here’s a small selection - but we thoroughly encourage you to explore further on our London Textile Month events page.

We look forward to seeing you there!

 

Curious About How Something is Made? Enjoy a Live Demonstration

Behind every finished textile lies a careful process — often unseen and undervalued. Want to witness the magic in the making? Our live demonstrations shine a light on some extraordinary craft.

Head to the Romanian Cultural Institute from 18 - 21 September to see Jasmine Is a Lie. MA RA MI's Andra Clițan brings her collection to life with embroidered gestures, sculptural garments, and raw-woollen narratives that speak to repair, ritual, and regeneration. Clițan, internationally recognised for her original creations, draws on PhD research into traditional festive costumes from the region of Maramureș and her work with regenerative fibres from Wovenbeyond.

Love a bit of carnival energy? Don’t miss Julieta Gimpel’s Carnival of Textiles. You can attend any of the three available Saturdays (13th, 20th, 27th). Gimpel has created stunning carnival costumes for 40 years, and now opens her studio to showcase her heat-press techniques: transfer dyes, foiling, and textural relief effects. An exuberant fusion of folk tradition and personal memory that will have you seeing colour in a whole new way. During the afternoon, travel to Mandinga Arts in Peckham, where you’ll get a rare chance to explore, handle, and even try on Julieta's legendary hand made costumes.

 

Feel Like Getting Hands-On? Learn a New Skill Through Our Workshops

There’s no better way to connect with cloth than by working it yourself. If you fancy learning directly from textile artists, our workshops are for you - but book early, spaces are selling out fast!

Hannah Refaat’s Revive and Renew at Cockpit Bloomsbury transforms repair into art. There are no less than four opportunities to join this workshop (2,12,19,26 September), for a chance to learn from a talented RCA graduate. Refaat draws on her Middle Eastern heritage to teach mending techniques that turn damaged garments into works of beauty. Learn hand and machine skills, inventive recycling, and fabric as sketchbook. All materials provided - bring your most cherished, battle-scarred pieces.

Fascinated by women’s history? Join Illuminated Arts at Cherry Garden Hall (September 3 & 9) for 'Make a Historically Inspired Pocket' - a hands-on journey through pocket politics. Before the mid-19th century, women’s pockets weren’t sewn in but tied under skirts. Alongside textile-artist-historian Melissa Jo Smith and acclaimed designer Rebecca Cole, you will hand-stitch a historically accurate pocket using vintage textiles and beads, exploring the political story behind women’s hidden possessions.

For a peaceful and meditative embroidery experience, try Sujaya Mahesh’s Kasuti Embroidery workshop (September 9) at the Museum of the Home. This reversible technique from Karnataka, dating back to the 7th century, is a practice of astonishing precision and calm. Create symmetrical, temple-inspired patterns on your own bookmark, guided by Sujaya’s 25 years spent reviving this intricate craft.

Interested in historical embroidery? Don’t miss Phillipa Turnbull’s Rowan Tree Crewelwork workshop (September 30) at the Museum of the Home. Explore 17th-century designs and Arts & Crafts techniques with evocative stitch names like Whipped Spider’s Web and Raised Satin Stitches.

Want to immerse yourself fully? Dr Vishal C. Bhand’s three-day intensive Ecoprint, Block Printing & Rust Printing (September 28–30) at Beker Studios covers rust dyeing, ecoprinting, and block printing. As a natural dye specialist, Dr Vishal offers hands-on experience with heritage techniques, taking you on a joyful, earthy journey. Leave with samples, swatches, and comprehensive guides for your own sustainable practice.

 

Fancy an Afternoon of Browsing? Head to Our Exhibitions

These are for you if you want to explore the streets of London while taking a textile-inspired wander:

Drawing into Threads at Goldsmiths (September 1–12) unites Canadian artists and Pakistani embroiderers in a decade-long dialogue through stitch, transcending borders and craft hierarchies. The textile pieces that will be showcased in this exhibition began with a shared act of drawing: eyes closed, and pencils sweeping across paper without direction or authorship, in what results in a mesmerising journey for the eye.

Step into St John-at-Hampstead Church (September 6–15) for In-Vestments by Gracjana Rejmer-Canovas: monumental textile installations inspired by sacred garments from her Polish Catholic upbringing, grounded in ritual but pulsing with contemporary urgency. Witness this contemporary artist's view of shape, colour, ritual, symbolism and ceremony in a truly spiritual setting.

Theatre lovers, don’t miss the first MA Costume Showcase with Dr. Veronica Isaac at Wimbledon College of Arts (September 18–20). Garments here blur the line between function and fantasy, brought to life with research portfolios, film, and sound. On the opening day of the showcase, visitors will be able to discover more about how and where the costumes were created by signing up for a range of campus tours (including 3D labs and Costume Studios). You will discover some of the wonderful costumes in their Teaching Collection and can participate in workshops led by Specialist Technicians.

 

In the Mood for a Film? Try Our Screenings

Sit back and be inspired by tactile stories unfolding like fabric itself:

Catch the London premiere of Woman Grows Jeans at Crouch End Picturehouse (September 6), a film about regional Fibreshed founder, Justine Aldersey-Williams. She recently made fashion history by producing the U.K.’s first pair of homegrown jeans from seed to seam – a feat that involved her growing flax and indigo, breaking, scutching, hackling, extracting and dyeing, then hand spinning every day for a year. One year, one garment, one powerful ecological act. Stay for the embroidery workshop with plant-dyed threads afterwards.

Deepen your textile heritage knowledge with The World of Bengal Textiles at The Nehru Centre (September 18). This screening explores centuries of Bengal’s cloth-making brilliance - delicate jamdanis, rich muslins, and years of dedicated research into one of the world’s most sophisticated textile traditions. This event includes a panel discussion - with speakers soon to be revealed. At the heart of this initiative is Weavers Studio Resource Centre - a not-for-profit trust founded in 2007 in Kolkata by Darshan Shah. The centre acts as a knowledge bank, archive, and research hub documenting over 1,500 rare textiles and 2,500 volumes. WSRC’s mission bridges preservation with innovation, creating a living continuum between past traditions and contemporary textile practice.

 

Fancy Going Behind the Scenes? Join Our Tours

Textiles are everywhere - on stages, behind curtains, tucked away in archives. Want to see where these stories begin? Our tours open doors usually closed to the public:

Join a Tour and Talk with Nikki Weston at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (September 10). Tour the costume studios where tomorrow’s theatrical wardrobes are dreamed up.  Guildhall students train to become the next generation of costume designers, makers, supervisors and wardrobe managers, mastering the art of bringing characters to life through fabric, form and fearless creativity. Expect everything from the engineering behind Batman’s stretchy suits, to Dorothy’s ruby slippers. Come meet the makers. Discover the magic. And see how Guildhall are shaping the future of costume in film, TV and theatre.

Join Ruby Hodgson (September 17) for a tactile journey through the Goldsmiths Textile Collection - an internationally significant archive where antique samplers, radical student work, and textile fragments sit side by side. Explore 20 years of the Christine Risley Award alongside decades of textile innovation you can actually touch. This internationally significant collection is a living resource that continues to spark research, making, and new ideas across the textile field. Whether you're a maker, a scholar, or simply a lover of beautiful things, this is your chance to see textiles in a new light - tactile, powerful, and deeply connected to global narratives.

 

Ready to Join Us?

With events running throughout September, you could easily spend the whole month exploring London’s textile scene. There’s something for everyone, with options from beginner level to masterclass, and opportunities to both socialise and meet people within the textile community, or enjoy a quiet, intimately creative setting. Many workshops include materials and refreshments, and some even offer a glass of wine - if you’re so inclined!

London Textile Month isn’t just about admiring craftsmanship. It’s a movement - a call to look closer, slow down, notice the stitch in a sleeve or the pattern on an antique quilt. To ask who made this, and why.

So whether you’re joining a hands-on workshop or wandering through an exhibition with a notebook, we hope you’ll find something that speaks to you. This September, let’s see what happens when a city comes together through cloth.

-

Further Information:

Details and tickets for all events can be found on the Selvedge website HERE. 

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