Waste Not: Fallout to future - Textiles Deconstruction / Remake Workshop

Waste Not: Fallout to future is a journey through the wreckage of modern consumption and the radical possibility of its reassembly, showcasing designs manufactured entirely from waste.

This bold exhibition, part of London Design Festival and listed in City Wide: London Fashion Week 2025, introduces circular and regenerative design brands ReFactory and Exiled alongside legendary responsible design pioneer, Christopher Raeburn, and multidisciplinary artist, Katy Mason.

Through an immersive installation and design showcase, they present limited-run furniture, homeware, fashion, accessories and other one-off pieces, all created entirely from post-consumer waste recovered by leading waste management company, MYGroup – reframing this systemic scourge not as an end, but a beginning.

* Textiles Deconstruction / Reconstruction: Textiles Workshop *

Discover the hidden skills behind textile upcycling The preparation of materials before the upcycle process begins is often misunderstood and rarely seen, yet it’s one of the most labour-intensive and skilled stages of sustainable making. This hands-on workshop will let you step into the role of a pre-production textile assistant and learn what really goes on behind the scenes.

What you’ll do:

– Deconstruct a hi-vis vest: Take apart a simple garment, exploring the useful components and understanding how makers identify what can be reused.

– Reconstruct into a no-sew cushion: Transform the salvaged fabric into a functional cushion, learning accessible techniques that require no sewing experience.

– Gain practical insight into material preparation, upcycling processes and sustainable design thinking.

Who it’s for:

– Open to all, no sewing or craft experience required.

– Ideal for anyone curious about sustainable fashion, upcycling or hands-on making.

Exhibition narrative

Waste isn’t just what’s left behind – it’s the fallout from a system breaking down.

Amid an era marked by conflict, unrest, division and environmental strain, waste is yet another manifestation of progress without responsibility.

Products are designed to be consumed fast and discarded just as quickly. We buy, we bin, we move on – one trend chasing the next, returns outpacing purchases, waste outpacing reason.

But the planet carries the weight of our abundance. Oceans churn with the lifetime of plastic we’ve thrown away. Forests fall for flat-packed furniture and fleeting trends. Metals, mined and forged into appliances, now rust in forgotten landfills. Textiles – the latest fashions of a year, or week, ago – pile high in rotting mounds.

Waste Not invites visitors to look directly at the materials they throw away – the very frontline of waste – then witness the often-unseen craft and skill required to deconstruct and reimagine them.

The exhibition features the raw design language of ReFactory furniture and homeware alongside the quiet precision of Exiled’s limited-run textiles and accessories. These collections are presented together with one-off pieces by responsible design legend Christopher Raeburn and multidisciplinary artist Katy Mason, alum of the Sarabande Foundation and founder of Trash Club.

Every item presented in the exhibition has been reclaimed and remanufactured with circularity and regenerative design in mind, using material recovered by leading UK waste management company, MYGroup.

Visitors are offered a glimpse of a future more hopeful still, as Exiled reveals its work in responsible cotton cultivation, fibre-to-fibre regeneration and fully traceable design through Digital Product Passports.

The exhibition and the designs presented propose a new type of making – one rooted in necessity. This isn't up- or down-cycling – it's disruption. An uprising. A refusal to let value die in landfill or the fire. Reframing waste dismissed by industry and society not as fallout, but future.

Exhibition spaces

1. FALLOUT

During a golden age of convenience, we find ourselves in a dark age of waste – the fallout from a system in conflict. An immersive space confronts, disorients and demands visitors face up to the problem.

2. MATERIAL TRUTH

The raw truth of overproduction and systemic discard is laid bare, with different types and sources of post-consumer and industrial waste presented as artefacts – distorted, sculpted and undeniable.

3. MATERIAL RECKONING

Collections of furniture, homeware, fashion, accessories and art are presented, crafted entirely from material once deemed worthless. Waste transformed into objects of utility, of beauty...of defiance.

4. FUTURE

The fallout is already here, but a future lies ahead for those ready and willing to transform and waste not. Brands know they can no longer afford to ignore their downstream impact – the choice now is not whether to act, but how.

5. LIVE SPACE (Select days / times)

Demoing the craft of circular making and regenerative design, from careful deconstruction to remanufacture – presenting waste not as abstract material, but to be worked with in the here and now.