Day 1
On the first day, the group was welcomed in one of the premises of Le Textile Lab in Lyon, for an introduction of the work they’re developing and a small networking session, preparing the cohort for the next days’ activities.
Day 2
The second day started early with a bus ride, to visit one of the leading local industries in upcycled yarn: Thion, Industrial Textile Recycling. The two owners of this family business toured the industrial facilities and told us all about the long history of this factory, founded in 1930, that produces mainly floor cleaning rags. Here, they process 8 tons of fabric a day, mainly without using colour dyes to ensure the lowest impact possible.
The afternoon was dedicated to a different industry: a social inclusion project focusing on sorting and selling second hand clothes. At Foyer Notre Dame des Sans Abris (https://www.fndsa.org/) they run training and employment programs for vulnerable groups that can go up to 2 years. They are also responsible to collecting most of the second hand garments in the region: spread across the region, they own 70 containers that collect an average of 8 tons of clothes per day. From all the clothes collected, only 30% are fit for resale. These clothes are then redistributed to their 6 shops in the region, where they hope they will find new owners.
Day 3
On wednesday, the day started with one last factory visit and one that had sparked more curiosity from the participants: the visit to Ictyos, the Fish Leather Factory (https://www.ictyos.com/). This has a singular story: the project started from two chemist friends, at a sushi dinner, who wondered what was done to so much fish skin that was discarded from the food system. Soon, they started running some experiments and nowadays they are one of the few factories in Europe that managed to process this by-product and turn it into a valuable new material.
In the afternoon the participants started to get their hands on the most experimental part of the program: the actual workshops started! The group was split in two, one starting to learn ‘Cooking Biomaterials’ and the other one ‘Shredding Textile’ - the first stage to create textile pulp, similar to the papier mâché technique.
The evening was the moment to gather the participants with other local stakeholders, on a public event held at Hôtel71 (https://hotel71.eu/) where the participants also got the opportunity to learn about the future plans of Le TExtile Lab in the city of Lyon and their synergies with the local municipality to promote more circular and eco-conscious businesses.
Day 4
Thursday was fully dedicated to the hands-on activities: the team from LTL hosted multiple sessions on how to turn fabric into new materials (paper and products). Marion was showing the participants how to Make Textile Paper, while Justine taught all the tips and tricks to Make Shapes & Volume. Lastly, Dominique had the opportunity to show his experiments with this new raw material, and taught everyone how to Cut & Sew and what is possible to achieve with this materials. Meanwhile, Pauline was hosting a session on Embroidery or Print on it, using scraps from fabric and showing the possibilities of this technique to extend the lifespan of our garments.
Day 5
We finished the Workshop with a cultural taste, with a visit to the Gadagne Museum where the history of Lyon is told and deeply intertwined with their heritage of textiles, which has woven most of the cities’ development throughout the years. Recently, Lyon has emerged as one of the most forward cities on circular and sustainable textiles, welcoming many projects and initiatives around this emerging (and necessary) trend.
We would like to thank once again to the wonderful team at Le Textile Lab, that crafted such an enriching and inspiring experience.
