MISSION STATEMENT +

Tex + is an initiative to promote, support and enhance Textile Design and training.

Our Mission is to develop a new self-sustaining model which connects textile graduates and practitioners with opportunities across the Textile Industries and beyond.

Our Texprint/TexSelect alumni will form the core of a virtual and real Textile community linking Textile Industries,

Sponsors, Educators and Graduates. We aim to focus on all aspects of Textile Excellence by engaging in best contemporary practices and relevant contemporary issues.

FUNDING

Thank you to everyone for the generous donations. With your help and the dedicated work of the trustees we have been building a website www.texplus.org and cleaning up the database ready to launch TEX+ in 2024 

We’re not there yet and still have a few hurdles to jump but the reaction has been truly amazing. Watch this space. 

BACKGROUND +

Over fifty years TexSelect (previously called Texprint), interviewed more than 10,000 young textile design graduates, and mentored and supported more than 1,250 of them to develop their careers and launch into the industry.

The selection was made by panels of textile industry professionals and academics who gave their time to support the organisation. The charity helped to select, mentor and promote the UK’s most talented newly

graduated textile designers, providing an opportunity for realistic development, and a vital bridge between higher education and the real, commercial world.

Those selected for this unique mentorship programme were introduced to buyers, press and sponsors at the TexSelect London Preview and at Europe’s leading fabric fair, Première Vision Paris, gaining exceptional first-hand experience in the industry. There were also opportunities to intern with some of Italy’s finest mills and manufacturers, to be trained on specialist CAD software, and to have work selected for a curated interior collection.

Many TexSelect alumni now enjoy high-profile creative roles within the international textile, fashion and interior design industries.

STATEMENTS +

Carlo Volpi, Tutor at the RCA, Creative director at Hong Kong-based spinner UPW

“When you leave college, it’s very easy to get depressed, I’ve done all this stuff and what now? It was great to have something to look forward to. I’m finished but I have a show in London then a whole summer to create work for Paris then Hong Kong, a lot of things happening to keep you motivated. It was great.”

Kirsty McDougall, (Tx2002), weave design studio.

“I would just have graduated, and people would have said, you need to show your portfolio and I was too shy, just to have those first few sales and projects kickstarted everything. I would have done something in

textiles, but running my own businesses, I would not have started [so soon]. It was pivotal. The support never ended, there was a family feeling about it, and there was a connectedness about it. People keeping in touch, Joanna or Peter, you met so many people and it was an ongoing thing; going back to be a judge.”

“It’s good to keep connected. From a professional point of view, it's good to look at collaboration, discuss what’s happening in textiles, to look at issues in the industry, how it’s changing. A dedicated point for discussion and professional connections,”

(Tx2002), own weave design studio.

Margo Selby, Woven designer, "Tx programme “massively” influenced my career: I sold designs, I had projects, so much press, it was a great platform. I used to keep all my press cuttings and a lot of them were around Tx"

Lucy Jones (Tx2013) gifts and homeware designer, Next.

“It would be lovely and it’s always beneficial to have contacts in the industry,”

Emma Sewell (Tx1990) co-owner, Wallace Sewell.

“If there’s any way to broaden the connections, beyond your own focus, across the design world, in a broader way. There are lots of networking events, but I’m rubbish and wouldn’t go to anything. If it’s more structured, rather than social, I’m rubbish at introducing myself, ‘hello I’mEmma…’. It has to be purposeful,”

Paul Roberts (Tx 2013) Freelance print designer

“I would love to meet up with other people in the industry … bounce ideas off one another – creative people need to work with other creatives – in isolation, it is very difficult. A working group, a collective where you do projects together would be amazing,”