Nathalie Spencer is a London based designer currently undertaking her final year of MA Material Futures at Central Saint Martins.
With a BA First Class Honours in Art and Design from the University of Leeds, her practice is material led and characterized by experimenting, sampling, and refining. Having developed a deep interest in humanity’s impact on the natural world, Nathalie’s work is defined by sustainability and circular systems. In studying the extreme environmental impact of the fashion industry and in the particular context of animal consumption, her final year project proposes vegan wool utilizing the waste leaves from pineapples, redesigning waste back into the biological cycle of the circular economy.
‘Wool: Re-Crafted’ presents a vegan alternative to wool by utilizing the discarded waste leaves of pineapples from markets and juice bars around London and processing the fibres into a wearable material. By perceiving waste as a design opportunity, an existing by-product is made into a sustainable and biodegradable vegan textile. Through collaboration, the project uses craft as a catalyst to relocate the value of the material and revive the connections within the making process.
At the core lies a more sustainable option to wool that is designed within the Circular Economy. The project aims to address fundamental issues around the sustainability of the fashion industry, by turning to the materials around us and the crafts of local people. As a result, in questioning the environmental and ethical concerns of the use of animal products, the project challenges both the manner in which we consume as well as the manner in which we make.
