Material World: Textiles Take Root at Kew

This autumn, inside the soaring Temperate House at Kew Gardens, something looks different. As sunlight filters through iron and glass onto flora and fauna, other unexpected forms appear to be sprouting from the soil itself: puffer jackets padded with herbs, knitwear spun from nettles, cloth woven from seaweed, and dresses designed to dissolve gently back into the earth. Material World (20 September – 2 November) is Kew’s first festival devoted to fashion and textiles, and it feels less like an exhibition than a living story about how our clothes might once again grow in harmony with nature.

Lottie Delamain, Chelsea Garden. Photo credit: Dave Watts

The story begins with a problem. Every year, up to 100 billion new garments are produced worldwide. Almost 90% are discarded within a short span, filling landfills or feeding incinerators. Fashion, once rooted in the careful tending of fibres and dyes, has become an industry of extraction. Material World asks: what if we rewrote this narrative? What if the future wardrobe was regenerative, not destructive?...

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Image Credits:

Lead: Nnenna Okore – Between Earth and Sky. Image courtesy of Kew Gardens.

All other images as credited in photo captions.