Botanical Colour : a textiles workshop for teachers/educators

London College of Fashion

Wednesday 24 June

930 am to 1230 pm

(followed by lunch in the canteen and entry to the East Ed conference)

Botanical Colour: a textiles workshop

For: Educators working with primary and secondary-aged children and young people

What to expect

An introduction to extracting colour from natural matter; plants, fruits and vegetables. Participants will explore the colours and plants around East Bank that can be used as dye stuff. Create two to three physical dye baths to create painting inks. Work alongside the textiles team as they develop their new dye gardens across the balconies and get inspiration for your own school/college/community setting.

Key learning outcomes:

Identify at least 3 common British natural dye sources

The basics of mordanting

Understand simple colour extraction from natural sources.

Link the creation of colour to science, art, geography, environment, history through discussion and practical testing.

This session will be delivered by:

Jemma Ooi Bio

Designer and educator working in textiles. Trained at the Royal college of Art, She is co-founder of design studios CUSTHOM and PIGMENT PRESS and Postgraduate design tutor for MA Fashion Textiles Technologies at London College of Fashion. The focus of her creative practise is to explore the process of silk screen printing, colour, materials and making. Questioning what and how we make in order to challenge industry standards and find innovation in how materials behave.

Dr Mila Burcikova Bio

Reader in Fashion Systems and Research Development Lead, Centre for Sustainable Fashion

Mila’s research investigates alternatives to the current fashion system. Her current projects focus on the connections between fashion and agriculture, rural fashion systems, and the role of time and cyclical patterns in sustainable living. In addition, through her continuing ethnographic research on emotional durability of clothing, Mila develops her concept of ‘mundane fashion’. Mundane Fashion serves as a metaphor for a holistic understanding of how fashion’s deeply personal, cultural, social, and environmental implications are experienced in people's everyday lives.

Hannah Riley Bio

Outreach Coordinator, London College of Fashion and Associate Lecturer and Visiting Practitioner

Hannah is a sustainable fashion-textiles practitioner, designer and educator who facilitates empowering and engaging play and learning spaces for flourishing futures. Her practice sits at the intersection between fashion, design, sustainability, storytelling, pedagogy and young people. She explores alternative sustainability engagement through play, imagination, curiosity, dress-ups, and speculative futuring. Hannah works with communities, people of all ages, and especially children and young people, to re-envision fashion, exploring plural and diverse fashion scenarios. By re-imagining fashion systems and pedagogies, she aims to help transform fashion into an ecosystem built on joy, revitalisation, inclusion and care for all, including the more than human.

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This is an East Ed event.

is a cross-organisational effort between the world-leading East Bank partners: BBC, UCL, UAL's London College of Fashion, V&A and Sadler's Wells. The programme also features collaborations from other incredible local partners.

Together, we link local young people and educators to the exciting institutions, universities, and sectors unique to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, offering access to programmes exploring creative, digital, design, and careers. We aim to provide educators with professional development opportunities as well as provide a space for wider discussions around careers, well-being, and work culture.

UCL East Campus, Sadler’s Wells East, V&A East Museum and Storehouse and London College of Fashion, UAL are all now open at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park with BBC Music Studios due to open in 2027.