During lockdown the Thread team was fragmented with most of us at home (and communicating digitally) and only physical prototyping tasks taking place at the studio. Now we’re all (except one) back in the studio we can get back to our normal (but precious) face-to-face…
Read more ›
…beneath our clothes we have our underwear and mostly we don’t forensically examine it but this is not how Amber Butchart sees it. She is a consultant forensic garment analyst for the UK police. Her background in vintage clothing allows her to date any clothing…
Read more ›
Mussels are able to cling on in the face of waves that ought to overwhelm the adhesive strength of the glue that bonds them to the rocks. When the complete system (shell, byssus threads, glue and all) is modelled and analysed it turns out that…
Read more ›
It was known to ancient Chinese traders as mermaid silk and mentioned on the Rossetta Stone. Those who weave it swear a Sea oath to never profit from its production and there’s only one weaver of it left in the world: Chiara Vigo ( https://www.chiaravigo.it/…
Read more ›
The idea of darning up a missing piece of skin on a human being sounds like the kind of medicine Lewis Caroll and Tim Burton might dream up but it could now be possible in the real world. Work at the French National Institute of…
Read more ›
Chloe Ball-Hopkins isn’t like most of us. Where most of us, if we found ourselves miserably soaking wet at a festival because there wasn’t suitable wet weather gear for us, would complain and probably have a hot bath when we got home, she decided to…
Read more ›
…but for the rest of us we rely on our waterproof jackets to stay dry in the rain. Unfortunately, it has become increasingly well-known that much of the technology used can accumulate in the environment and in body tissue. A team at MIT (Massachusetts Institute…
Read more ›
Most of us would rather not consider the possibility of sustaining a serious burn and in that situation the last place we would expect a medical professional to look for a treatment option would be food waste but sometimes the most valuable things are in…
Read more ›“ I cut it a little roomy for the free movement, the fabric is comfortable for sensitive skin… [a sheet of flame erupts in front of the suit] And it can also withstand a temperature of over 1000 degrees. Completely bulletproof… [four heavy machine guns…
Read more ›
Assuming you’re happy that yeast is definitely not an animal (it’s a fungus….I double-checked) then Zoa is an animal-free alternative to leather. as far as I understand it there’s a bit of DNA cut-and-shut which is re-homed into little yeast cell factorys which grow the…
Read more ›
This morning I was looking at the Pantone website as we want to update our colour reference materials. My eye was caught by their skin matching books which claim to provide “a comprehensive visual reference of human skin tones”. The front cover appears to show…
Read more ›
I find saddle points (or hyperbolic paraboloids as they’re mathematically known) a deeply pleasing shape. This little hook was developed as part of a large project we’ve been collaborating on. It’s strong and safe as it has no sharp edges. For more hyperbolic paraboloid and…
Read more ›
Wouldn’t it be nice to have even natural light in a room regardless of the position of the sun in the sky? One unexpected way to achieve this could be to use wooden panels. Clearly (!) not just an 8′ x 4′ from the builder’s…
Read more ›
This glove may look cumbersome but it could seriously reduce the communication burden for thousands of sign language users. It can translate the 26 letters of ASL (American Sign Language) into text and the current version was built for less that $100 using stretchable and…
Read more ›
We produce beautifully finished textile based prototypes of concepts for our clients to use in many different ways. Market research, user research, for demonstrations, photo and video work. We work hard to create prototypes that work right and look great. To get the right feel,…
Read more ›
As a child Dr Franz Freudenthal visited indigenous communities in the mountains of Bolivia with his doctor grandmother. On these trips she would quote a snippet of Rudyard Kipling “Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the mountains. Something lost behind the…
Read more ›
We are delighted that in March 2019 Exosuit was launched. Exosuit gives athletes proprioceptive feedback to help improve posture, stability and feeling of power. To help make this possible Thread iteratively developed the garment and it’s patented technology with Exosuit. It was tested and refined…
Read more ›It’s possible that future computers could have memory devices based on eggshells as researchers at the Guizhou Institute of Technology have been prototyping a new form of solid-state memory. Eggshells were processed to form a material that changed its resistance in response to a voltage…
Read more ›A focus on frugality and a willingness to explore unlikely mechanisms has led this team of Stanford bioengineers to develop an incredibly low cost ‘paperfuge’ – a centrifuge made of paper that requires no electricity – as a diagnostic tool to serve the one billion…
Read more ›
Wishing all our clients, suppliers and collaborators a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. We look forward to working together in 2019!
Read more ›
We’re always interested to come across materials that meet particular requirements. In this case a leather alternative that is not an animal product. Muskin is a material based on a large parasitic fungus that grows on trees in subtropical forests. It is similar in appearance…
Read more ›
I have an ongoing fascination with bats, bat wings and bat flight and so was delighted to come across this bat-based aerobatic robot. It’s known as Bat Bot (B2) and has been developed at the University of Illinois by postdoctural researcher Alireza Ramezani who describes…
Read more ›
Apparently bacteria can be engineered to produce thermoplastics. This is not a fact I knew and is casually mentioned on the website of the BiOrigami team of undergraduates from Standford and Brown universities who are developing a method of producing plastic and then causing it…
Read more ›A big theme in textiles and materials development at the moment is sustainability and recycling so this story about egg packaging made of eggs has scrambled our minds. Researchers as Tuskegee University added egg shell nanoparticles (350,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human…
Read more ›
To me, this sounds like the story line from a children’s book, but no, this is something that really happens. Michael Allen Harris and his father-in-law hunt for jeans from the 1800’s in abandoned silver mines. Recently they found a pair of Levi’s from 1873,…
Read more ›
This morning we were discussing how hot a roomful of 30 people doing tap get in the summer (not a theoretical discussion but a pressing one after a very hot tap class). Another person in the class had a cooling towel which was as cool…
Read more ›
…on saturday he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of swiss chesse, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one sliece of watermelon….and 184mg of supermaket plastic shopping…
Read more ›
We’re in the middle of updating our website and whilst sorting through images (we started with over 6000 – eek) I came across these photos of a prototype bag for a highly technical mechanism we made a few years ago. I seem to remember that…
Read more ›3D printing can seem a magical way to produce an object as if from nowhere. It is often presented as a one stop way to produce a product but what it often lacks is a pleasing or tactile surface finish. Here at Thread we spend…
Read more ›
We spend more time folding fabric than an average person might (particularly at the moment as we’re working on some very large products made of net). It’s a surprisingly subtle skill. We were intrigued to come across Dextrous Blue, a robot developed in a collaborative…
Read more ›
2017 has been a great year for Thread – we’ve welcomed two new members to the team! Georgie as a textile prototyper and Elora as a junior designer. Here’s to 2018!
Read more ›
We’re delighted that the GoBag 2 Kickstarter campaign has launched and already exceeded its £10,000 goal and is heading up. Website link: GoBag Kickstarter campaign
Read more ›
Georgie is a textile prototyper with a background in costume construction, tailoring and bridal. Georgie’s interest in costume was born out of a desire to explore different and unusual materials, construction techniques and the chance to create something visually exciting and that communicates to its…
Read more ›
This month we’re back in Thailand, finalising the production set-up for a product launching later this year. We’ve been developing the product with our client for four years and we can’t say much until it’s launched but here’s a photo of a bit of cardboard…
Read more ›It’s interesting how frequently a simple idea requires a large amount of perseverance and follows a complicated path before it physically exsists. Clothing that composts is a simple idea to understand but not to enact. Freitag have spent five years developing three textiles (and their…
Read more ›
Fermenting cellulose Designer Suzanne Lee has produced (and continues to develop) a fabric that comes from a zoogleal mat formed during the fermentation of a sweetened tea. The fabric that is produced is still made up of cellulose (like cotton, linen, viscose and rayon) but…
Read more ›
“I do not consider myself a remarkable person. I am just a guy with a very large bump of curiosity” – Clarence Birdseye Birdseye is synonymous with frozen foods but what I didn’t realise until yesterday was that Clarence Birdeye began developing his fast freeze…
Read more ›
I’m British. It’s over 30 degrees centigrade. Today I want to be covered in this cooling film Website link: Newly engineered material can cool roofs, structures with zero energy consumption, 9th February 2017, University of Colorado Boulder
Read more ›In his book, Things come apart, Todd McLellan takes everyday objects, breaks them down into their constituent parts, lays them out and photographs them. These images highlight the hidden complexity of the products around us. Take a sewing machine, for example. We see a smoothly…
Read more ›
Great to see all the hard work that went into this product being recognised Website link: reddot award winner 2017 – N-Pro scrum cap
Read more ›
Great to see Nike have launched a sports Hijab. In 2014 we worked with the pioneering and inspirational Iranian triathlete Shiz Gerami to develop sports clothing that met the Iranian ministry of sport’s modesty requirements, but did not impact on Shiz’s performance in the World…
Read more ›
…turn the heating down and put another jumper on, except that now that extra jumper might be dip-coated in a silver nanowire solution that makes the fabric highly radiation insulating. It could even reflect back over 90% of a user’s body heat whereas the average…
Read more ›Katia Vega seems to work at the intersection of the functional and the fabulous. It would be easy to think that technology research involving make-up would be perhaps a little frivolous but the miniaturisaton required alone is enough to refute that idea fairly thoroughly. She…
Read more ›
Interesting to chat to Hal Watts from Unmade at a reception for The 1851 Commission (an amazing organisation who funded both Hal and me to study at the RCA) about knitting as the earliest form of Additive Manufacture. In knitting you take a continuous material…
Read more ›Researchers at the University of Rochester have developed a cloaking device that uses standard lenses and optical equipment rather than exotic materials. It works across a range of distances and angles and avoids distortion of the background which often reveals that cloaking is being attempted.…
Read more ›
We’ve been helping N-Pro develop their new rugby headguard which launched today – more to come… Website link: n-pro website
Read more ›
Researchers at the University of Warwick have developed a low-cost conductive plastic composite that can be 3D printed using a standard 3D printer. This opens up possibilities for printing electronically functional objects rather than just beautiful models that have no functionality. Currently they have produced…
Read more ›The Gecko’s ability to climb walls and ceilings captures the imagination of many design and engineering students (it certainly did when I was studying) but most get no further than daydreaming about using this impressive skill at human scale. It’s the scaling up that’s prevented…
Read more ›
How can baby product design save parents time? Reduced mess = less tidying. Rachel and Tom Wood are parents of twins – and time sapped as a result. Seeking to save on tidying and clothes changes (or messy kids) after mealtimes, Rachel began experimenting with…
Read more ›
Thread has recently reconnected with Ben Hubert of Layer, a friend from previous projects. Ben has been working with Materialise on a 3d printed wheelchair. Here are some links to the very good-looking wheelchair and glove prototypes. We’ve previously worked with Ben back in our…
Read more ›For a long time all bikes were made of steel, then came aluminium and then carbon fibre. For fairly similar reasons (improved strength per unit weight) KONE have developed the Ultrarope (TM) lift cables based on a carbon fibre core. The limiting factor for the…
Read more ›I still remember being a child and my Grandad telling me that black was the absence of all light. It was an astonishing thought as I couldn’t fathom how it could be absence if I could see it. A new material developed by Surrey NanoSystems…
Read more ›
Thread attended a consultation workshop for the UK textile community exploring textile R & D priorities for 2017-2020 organised by the Knowledge Transfer Network. One of the main themes was development of textiles that can integrate with data gathering equipment for monitoring purposes eg medical.…
Read more ›
On Monday, Thread is off to Munich for ISPO, the sports industry trade fair, to meet suppliers and bring back inspiration, market insight and great new materials and hardware. If you’ll be there too let us know: sam@thread-design.co.uk chris@thread- design.co.uk
Read more ›
Chris is a product designer who became passionate about specialising in products with textiles after designing a technical jacket for hand-cyclists. For him, design is always driven by the user. He enjoys design challenges and approaches through problem solving and collaboration with the user. His…
Read more ›Overview Are you an energetic and reliable individual with lots of initiative? Do you feel like taking on a diverse and well-rounded role in a social and dynamic environment? Are you a happy and hard-working person with a natural flair for service and structure? If…
Read more ›Overview Are you an energetic and reliable individual with lots of initiative? Do you feel like taking on a diverse and well-rounded role in a social and dynamic environment? Are you a happy and hard-working person who loves to create and stitch up 3D objects?…
Read more ›
Inspiration can come from many places and often seems to come from seemingly unrelated fields. I was recently at the Science Museum’s Cosmonauts exhibition and found the clothing particularly fascinating. (Frustratingly for me there was almost no information on what the garments were made of…
Read more ›
We develop and incorporate mechanical and functional features such as mechanisms and moulded fixtures into products we design, and can develop moulded components, mechanisms and internal structural elements.
Read more ›
We work closely with our clients to realise their aims. Some know exactly what they want their product to be like, and others come to us with a problem to solve. Collaborative sessions are a great way to find solutions, generate ideas and drive innovation:…
Read more ›
Manufacture lead times often get extended by toing and froing with the factory. This is why we take an engineering approach to technical packs; Patterns, samples and detailed specifications eliminate ambiguity in the handover from designer to manufacturer, minimising errors that can arise through misinterpretation.
Read more ›
We source materials, fixtures and fittings from a wide range of suppliers, from local retailers to global manufacturers. Our materials library is continually growing and contains materials fromcotton canvas to highly technical textiles. We are continually looking for new fabrics to fulfil our clients needs
Read more ›
Great to see a project we contributed to being launched. We worked with Kinneir Dufort to develop the body armour prototypes and produced the final prototype shown in the video in house at Thread. Website link: MOD unveils futuristic uniform design, 16th September 2015
Read more ›“Innovation and inspiration at Nike often start with the simple act of listening to the voice of the athlete. As expressed within its mission statement, the company believes: If you have a body, you’re an athlete” We have a little phrase we sometimes uses at…
Read more ›Here at Thread, we relish visits to manufacturers (we’ve even been known to visit factories when we’re on holiday). Recently we’ve been looking into seamless knitting for a few projects. It’s an intriguing manufacturing process as the properties of a garment (such as stretch or…
Read more ›Before After An interesting conference in Cambridge with several thought-provoking talks. Kresse (of Elvis & Kresse) was particularly inspirational and challenging. I saw her speak when the company was just starting out and fell in love with the reclaimed firehose material. It’s an amazing story…
Read more ›In 2011, Edgar Martin spent 9 days exploring the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in star City, Moscow as part of a project to record the work of a space programme from an artistic point of view. This particular project stemmed from a childhood fascination…
Read more ›
Making is at the heart of all projects at Thread. We prototype to explore, develop, test, communicate and sell ideas, concepts and products. This important with all design projects, and is especially important with textiles. Our prototyping studio is well equipped with industrial sewing machines,…
Read more ›
Books, Google, primary research, user research, inspiration; all these help to bring understanding to a design project. Insights drive projects and facilitate successful design. Research, and particularly user research helps generate insight. We also use research to identify manufacturers, suppliers, new technologies and materials, processes…
Read more ›
With a penchant for making products that have a distinct impact on a user’s quality of life, Rachel is our textiles specialist with a background in manufacturing and industrial design engineering. Since co-founding Thread, Rachel has combined her engineering skills with her textiles expertise to…
Read more ›
Sam loves technical problem solving. From designing a ventilation system for high-performance outdoor clothing to developing aids for disabled children. He’s not willing to let his heart rule his head and go for the cleverest looking (or sounding) solution but always wants proof and an…
Read more ›
A complete set of body armour made of bones has been discovered in Omsk, Siberia and according to Yury Gerasimov, a research fellow of the Omsk branch of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, it would have “given good protection from weapons that were used…
Read more ›
Really interested to see the M&S ‘shwop’ coat. Firstly, it’s great that clothes that are unsuitable for charity shops or reuse can still have value. Secondly, it reduces costs. Lastly, I find the rebranding of what is actually a fairly old idea quite funny. The…
Read more ›
India has a long history of textile skill in development and production. This is reflected in the number of words we have in English that derive from Indian languages including calico, gingham, khaki, seersucker and chintz. The technique of mordant dyeing (that uses natural dyes…
Read more ›The idea of water flowing uphill seems impossible and confined to fantastical images like those created by the artist M.C. Escher ( Website link: M.C. Escher, Waterfall ). However, engineers at MIT have made this impossibility feasible. Inspiration was taken from motile cilia, the small…
Read more ›
Silk is an extraordinary material with several amazing properties. It can provide excellent ballistic protection and has been used extensively in the past and perhaps slightly more surprsingly is part of the current issue of kit for British soldiers. Here at Thread we know that…
Read more ›
I just came across this interesting article about an exhibition in 2005 of the textiles that (it’s claimed) inspired Matisse’s use of colour. In the town where he grew up there was no museum or galleries but the amazingly vividly coloured textiles were produced. Throughout…
Read more ›Jacquard punchcards Jacquard weaving is a development of traditional loom weaving that integrates a system of punched cards (see above) that can control the position of the warp (lengthways threads) and therefore what colour and pattern is visible on the surface of the fabric. These…
Read more ›
Shirin Gerami crosses the line at WTS Edmonton as Iran’s first and only female triathlete! Thread and Shirin worked together to make the specialised kit that had to provide complete coverage with minimal effect on mobility and thermal burden. In a world of minimal, one-piece…
Read more ›
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have that a small plant-hopping insect, the Issus, has hind leg joints that very closely resemble mechanical gears like those in a car gearbox. These gears ensure that the Issus’ hind legs move with precise synchronisty when it starts…
Read more ›
Insulin pumps and beauty pageants: one a fairly frequent topic of discussion at Thread the other less so but Miss Idaho 2014 caught our attention. Sierra Sandison has type 1 diabetes and rather than hide her insulin pump she simply wore it on the waistband…
Read more ›
When I was on honeymoon in New Zealand a few years ago we gatecrashed (politely asked if we could join in) a symposium at the University of Otago entitled “Technologies in Sport: Performance, Bodies and Ethics”. Probably not most people’s idea of a good use…
Read more ›Thread developed and prototyped the carry bag of the TacSat Razor Antenna during development. The mechanism that deploys the antenna is wonderful (it delighted us geeks here at Thread) and the tight tolerances on the mechanism meant the bag had to be extremely tightly toleranced…
Read more ›
In a recent meeting there was a discussion about obscuring the outline of an object or body which reminded me of this early and bold camouflage. There was no science behind it when it was created just a feeling that it might make things more…
Read more ›
With increasing demand for sustainable alternatives so it makes sense to minimise the weight of the sustainable energy production system so that it’s easier to deliver and uses less fossil fuel to do so! GE are developing a woven fabric that is based on fibreglass…
Read more ›Mamascent™ is a bottle attachment that recreates the sensory benefits of breastfeeding for bottle-fed babies. It consists of a pad that becomes infused with the smell of the mother. A petal from the pad can be attached to a bottle to calm and comfort baby…
Read more ›
It’s always pleasing when a product we’ve worked on reaches the market. Thread undertook Design for Manufacture refinement and manufacturing samples for Harry & Jack’s. This is a product that brought a smile to our faces. I think we’re probably all too old and big…
Read more ›
Researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Illinois have developed a lithium-ion battery that can be stretched to 300% of its original size and still function. Not quite as good as a bat wing (see below) but when compared to a standard, solid battery…
Read more ›Having started thinking about the BMW GINA car the photo of it with its door open started me thinking about bat wings and flight. There are several brilliant things about bat wings and flight. When a bat is flying it folds its wing on the…
Read more ›
It’s not often there’s an overlap between textile product design and forensic science, but research undertaken by Poulomi Bhadra (an MSc student at King’s College, London) in conjunction with the Metropolitan Police and the Natural History Museum seems to have found one. The research project,…
Read more ›
The Leckey Leeway pelvic cradle (that Thread helped Leckey to develop) has just been launched. It provides improved postural support and proprioceptive feedback for wheelchair users. The improved hip position can improve upper body posture and position which in turn can improve breathing, head carriage…
Read more ›
The upper of the Nike Flyknit is like no other trainer or spike. Instead of being created from a number of panels stitched together it is knitted as a single piece (including the tongue). The upper has different properties in different areas. This allows the…
Read more ›
We’ve just returned from the techtextil tradefair in Frankfurt. Technical textiles and non-wovens as far as the eye could see! Some interesting new materials and some great new suppliers. Lots of development happening in the integration of leds into textiles. I think we’re still a…
Read more ›
The BMW GINA concept car was made a few years ago but I started thinking about it the other day. It’s such a different way of thinking of a car. I like the idea of questioning the obvious: in this case, the assumption that safety…
Read more ›
Just finished a quote for some potential work on prosthetic limbs (which we’re very excited about). We came across this amazing organisation during a bit of background research. The Alternative Limb Project creates prosthetic limbs for individuals, either ones that are so realistic it’s disconcerting…
Read more ›
This video from 1957 of a rock making factory in London is astonishing. The letters in rock seemed magical enough anyway but now they seem even more extraordinary. Sometimes things are made in the most unexpectedly simple way. In the case of rock, a bit…
Read more ›
A series of garments were shown in Iris Van Herpen’s collection at Paris Fashion Week S/S 2013 that were 3D printed in a single piece using Materialse’s Mammoth Sterolithography machines. As they are created in a single piece they have no seam lines. This has…
Read more ›
Jonathan Ive talking about beauty, making stuff and being a kid who knows what they want to do. I heard this a few months ago and loved it. He’s so understated and sensible. Website link: Jonathan Ive talks to James Naughtie on the Today programme
Read more ›
Here at Thread we love natural fibres, particularly Merino wool, so it’s brilliant to see it being used by Patagonia to line their frigid water wetsuit. The fibres of Merino wool are much smaller and smoother than most other wools so it can be worn…
Read more ›
This bowl is made of 100% cork but processed in such a way that it apparently feels more similar to leather and is very pliable. This seems like it could be useful for something less decorative and more function-led. Cork provides excellent insulation (I think…
Read more ›It is both surprising and perhaps obvious that the process of making a bra is complex, careful and time consuming. A good bra has high requirements; to be lightweight, structurally robust and tailored to fit a variety of breast shapes. On top of that, it…
Read more ›
A new Banksy has appeared on the wall of a Poundland store in north London. Website link: The Independent: Banksy gets the bunting out in north London, 15th May 2012
Read more ›Researchers at the Bio-Inspired Materials and Devices Laboratory at Virginia Tech have developed and are testing a hydrogen fuel powered robotic jellyfish. The jellyfish consists of a silicone bell structure with nano-platinum catalyst-coated multi-wall carbon nanotube (MWCNT) sheets, wrapped on the surface of nickel–titanium (NiTi)…
Read more ›
The Igarashi Design Interface Project at the Japan Science and Technology Agency is developing software that allows the user to draw in physical space on a mannequin to generate digital patterns that can be manipulated in software. There are a few basic tools for creating…
Read more ›Wrecking crew orchestra is made up of eight Japanese men who perform dance routines wearing electroluminescent suits. You might expect the result to be bad, inane, cheesy or all three but the choreography makes it a delight. Makes me think of the type of Japanese…
Read more ›
Kranium is made of ribs of corrugated cardboard that are slotted together into an array. Under impact the ribs can flex to absorb energy and under extreme loading the cardboard will crumple. When tested at Imperial College against the British Standards (EN 1078) it performed…
Read more ›Hövding starts as a collar which deploys in an accident to protect the head, much like an airbag would. Hövding started out as Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin’s industrial design master thesis at Lund University in spring 2005. Their aim was to try to make…
Read more ›
Extreme loading on webbing straps: Rhino relocation This photo is from the latest rhino move, where 19 of the creatures were taken by WWF, Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency, SANParks, and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife on a 1,000 mile journey across South Africa to reside…
Read more ›
We received two samples of 50mm wide webbing today and there was a “The Devil wears Prada” moment when we were discussing which would work best in a particular design and somebody exclaimed that it wasn’t an obvious decision as they were just so different!…
Read more ›
“Saying that someone is simple is a little bit insulting, whereas it should be the highest compliment. It’s very simple to make things difficult and very difficult to make things simple. Things generally start simple, get difficult, then become simple again. The middle bit is…
Read more ›Article link: Kevin Warwick interview, The Engineer, 03/10/11
Read more ›“In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself…
Read more ›