Recolouring the System investigates how regenerative and bio-based colour systems can act as a catalyst for wider change within the textile sector. Plant-based, microbial, algal and waste-derived colour approaches are being actively developed across research, design and industry. The project examines what their adoption requires across design practice, sourcing, manufacturing infrastructure and supply chains, while reconsidering established expectations around consistency, performance and value.
Its central proposition is that regenerative colour systems operate within ecological limits: conditions including seasonality, finite yield, biological variation and material change over time, should not be treated as limitations to overcome, but as conditions that can inform alternative approaches to textile production, offering opportunities to reduce reliance on petrochemicals and support more traceable, regionally rooted systems of production.
Through the formation of the Regenerative Colour Network, participatory workshops, design sprints, and small-batch industrial trials, the research will examine the practical, behavioural and systemic changes involved in working with regenerative colour within existing UK textile production systems.
Visit https://cfpr.uwe.ac.uk/rcn for more information.
