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Textiles

Why study Textiles?

Textiles is part of the Key Stage 3 curriculum and is also available as a Key Stage 4 option subject. For interested Key Stage 3 students, we offer an extra-curricular Design Technology club.

Textiles Design - Fashion, Costume Design & Illustration

Have you ever wondered what your life would be like without Textiles?

This Textiles Design course allows you to think creativity and appreciate how textile products play a vital role in meeting our basic needs. The use of textiles has been traced back over 8500 years and this course will show you how clothing has evolved over the years and how technology has played its revolutionary part in the fashion industry.

For example, you know Textiles are used as life saving devices in the healthcare industry. The invention of disposable clothing helps prevent the spread of bacteria. Sutures for wounds are now made of a dissolvable textile fibre!

Clothing is a complex but fascinating part of everyone’s life. Different clothing styles are used depending on the occasion. In this course, we will teach you how to design garments to meet a brief/theme, encouraging you to think about style, colour, pattern, shape form and function of fashion and costume design.

You will be also be taught how to develop your 2D and 3D skills as practising designers and have the opportunity to work individually on practical projects. You will learn from direct teaching, peer learning, presentations, trips, reflective reading and writing and visits from professional practitioners working in the creative sector.

All Textiles Design students will be encouraged to experiment and will have the opportunity to use a wide range of materials including, print-making, photography and CAD design. Recording images and representing the world around you are at the heart of every project.

During your time on the course you will gain a strong understanding of the genres and styles in the history of art/fashion which underpin your own work.

To summarise, this is a diverse subject that will help you turn your creative passion into a money-making career if you decide to continue your studies at higher education.

Statement of Intent

The Textiles Design curriculum has been designed to equip students with specific knowledge and skills in the creation of designs and products for woven, knitted, stitched, printed or decorative textiles that might have a functional or non-functional purpose.

To achieve this our curriculum will:

  • Promote creativity in the development of ideas, relevant to textiles, fashion and costume design.
  • Support learners to make connections with cultural, social, historical, contemporary, environmental and creative contexts.
  • Explain how ideas, feelings, forms, and purposes can generate responses that address personal needs or meet external requirements, such as client expectations and any associated constraints.
  • Promote the ways in which meanings, ideas and intentions relevant to textile design can be communicated through colour, line, form, tone, texture, shape, pattern, composition and decoration.
  • Teach learners how to use Textile Design techniques and processes such as weaving, felting, stitching, appliqué, construction methods and printing.
  • Support learners to develop the use of media and materials such as, inks, yarns, threads, fibres, fabrics, textile materials and digital imagery.
  • Encourage learners to be independent, reflective and have high standards. This will be ensured through the development of teaching pedagogy to give students a toolbox of strategies to overcome problems and become more resilient.
  • Support learners to develop literacy skills in Textiles Design contexts with opportunities to read about and discuss design movements and trends.

 

Textiles Revision Resources