Celtic & Co. selects student project for potential feature in future collection

For a second year, natural sustainable fashion brand Celtic & Co. has collaborated with Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and British knitwear supplier Robert Todd on a project with students of BA Fashion Knitwear Design and Knitted Textiles to repurpose its old samples.

The live project looked to explore sustainable solutions for reject garments. Students had to design a women’s knitwear collection using a selection of Celtic & Co. garments provided by Robert Todd as the basis of designing and manufacturing their collections.

Robert Todd’s design manager, Angela Wood, said: “We were delighted when NTU wanted to repeat the repurposed garment project again. Building upon the success of last year, the standard of the portfolios submitted were, without exception, very professional.

“It was a joy to open each folder and follow the journey from the initial concept boards to the final garment. The students had clearly engaged with the Celtic brand and the research was impressive. The final outcomes were creative, commercial, and really epitomised the repurposed brief.”

Course leader of NTU’s fashion knitwear design and knitted textiles course, Helen Hill, continued: “This project challenged our second-year students to problem solve and address sustainability through repurposing or re-working garments. It introduced them to the industry and provided them with an awareness of knitwear design within a commercial context and specific market requirements.

“We are delighted with this year’s outcomes, with the students applying a broad range of knitting skills through hand machine and craft intervention. They also considered sustainability through back winding and sourcing yarns allowing them to produce visually exciting, finished garments in-keeping with the brand identity.”

The presentations were judged by product teams at both Robert Todd and Celtic & Co., who chose a top three with overall winner. The winning project came from Celina Kingston-Nielson, who created a landscape inspired knitted vest.

Head of product at Celtic & Co., Katy Burnett, said: “We were blown away by the high quality designs from all the students, and loved the final piece from Celina. We are now in talks to potentially reproduce it in some way for a future collection, which is really exciting.

“Congratulations also to our runners up, Molly Round and Mollie Blake, who also produced some inspiring work.”

By unwinding some of Celtic & Co.’s signature knitted pieces, winning student Celina Kingston-Nielson created a garment titled ‘Moonscape Sweater Vest’ which is 100% wool and comprises colours of navy, light blue, teal, green, oatmeal and mustard.

Celina commented: “I’d like to thank Celtic & Co., Robert Todd, and NTU for the opportunity to take part in this project and am thrilled to be the winner.

“This working in industry module was an amazing new experience for me to develop and further my skills as a knitwear designer for my future career. My selected brief was ‘Moonlit Shores’ and the future thinking of sustainability was a basis for the design development. Through choosing to unravel a few reject garments, I gathered enough yarn to hand knit and give something, that was once deemed worthless, a new lease of life.

“My aim was to show that the repurposing of a garment is more important than the use of recycled materials - by doing so we can work to reduce not only textile waste, but excess fuel and water waste that the recycling process produces. I thoroughly enjoyed the process of designing and turning an industry brief into a meaningful core memory from my time at university.”