Articles by: Alison Welsh

Alison Welsh is Head of Fashion Research at Manchester Metropolitan University and is based within the Manchester Fashion Institute. Welsh is a fashion designer and educator with four years of departmental leadership experience. She works with communities and museums, advocating fashion and textiles as instruments for social change. Her research focuses on developing models of sustainable craft and design collaboration, to stimulate regeneration of rural craft practices and their dependent communities through design initiatives with commercial outcomes. She has been collaborating with craftsmen and women in Gujarat, India for approximately 10 years. She is currently participating in a project run by the British Council, Focusing on Design Thinking and Cultural Identities.

30-May-2019

Fashioning Tradition:

Fashion designers Alison Welsh and Jasper Chadprajong-Smith are working hand-in-hand with Tai Lue weavers from the Silalang community in Nan province, a mountainous agricultural region of north-east Thailand. Together they are developing new garments using traditional hand-woven cotton textiles. The project aims to explore methods of equipping local artisans with knowledge in design thinking and the ability to integrate their cultural identity into their cloth in an authentic and thoughtful way.