Globally we are drowning in second-hand textiles, without the correct infrastructure to deal with this overconsumption textile waste either gets dumped in landfill, shipped to other countries ( that’s a whole other blog post), or incinerated. Currently, 87% of the material used for clothing production is landfilled or incinerated after its final use. But what are the current methods of recycling that are available? And what are their benefits and limitation?

Jesmonite is a material that I worked with for over 8 years and despite all this experience found it really hard to completely understand the sustainability credentials of this material. So I decided to take this opportunity to speak to the team at Jesmonite again and ask the questions about the materials that had always been bugging me.

Linoleum is one of those materials that is reminiscent of an era, bringing to mind instant images of 1920s patterned kitchen floors. Invented in the 1860s by an Englishman named Frederick Walton linoleum was such a success that within the space of 15 or so years it became so commonplace in homes and workplaces that the word linoleum became the first trade name to become a generic term.

I started Olivia Aspinall Studio back in 2015 straight after graduating from a textile design degree at Central Saint Martins. Despite specialising in printed textiles during my course, I spent most of my time collecting rocks from around the UK, creating pigments, and casting surfaces. It was this work that was luckily picked up at my degree show by a couple of different interior designers who were looking to commission bespoke pieces. I had accidentally timed the development of my practice with the resurgence of the terrazzo trend and after much experimentation, failure, and finally success Olivia Aspinall Studio was born.