Regenerative Colour Network
A research and practice network connecting design, material innovation, industry and emerging approaches to regenerative colour.
About the RCN
The Regenerative Colour Network brings together researchers, designers, practitioners, growers, manufacturers, material innovators and others working towards more regenerative approaches to colour.
The network explores colour as part of a wider material and production system: how colour is sourced, grown or produced; how it is applied and evaluated; and how changing colour systems might reshape design, manufacturing, supply chains and material value.
Established through the AHRC-funded Recolouring the System: Design-Led Interventions for Regenerative Textile Colour project, the network will support exchange across research, practice and industry and create opportunities for collaboration beyond the lifetime of the project.
Recolouring the System
Recolouring the System: Design-Led Interventions for Regenerative Textile Colour is a 12-month AHRC Design Generators research project led by UWE Bristol’s Centre for Print Research.
The project investigates regenerative textile colour as a design generator and system-level catalyst. Rather than considering colour solely as an aesthetic or technical choice, it asks how working with ecological constraints might reshape material sourcing, design decisions, manufacturing processes, evaluation methods and wider textile production systems.
Activity includes collaborative research and industry engagement, participatory design workshops, an industrial manufacturing probe, the Regenerative Colour Symposium and the development of the Regenerative Colour Network.
Project lead: Dr Laura Morgan, UWE Bristol / CFPR
Co-lead: Juliet Bailey, Dash and Miller
Funded by: AHRC Design Generators / Future Observatory
Partners: Society of Dyers and colourists, South West England Fibreshed, Bristol Weaving Mill, Stephen Walters and Sons
The inaugural Regenerative Colour Symposium will take place in late February 2027, bringing together research, design practice, material innovation and industry to explore emerging approaches to regenerative colour.
The programme will include invited speakers, research and practice presentations, panel discussions, material displays and opportunities to connect with the developing Regenerative Colour Network.
Date: Wednesday 24 February 2027 — final date and Bristol venue to be confirmed shortly.
Participate in the Research Workshops
As part of Recolouring the System, two participatory design workshops will investigate how regenerative colour might influence textile design decisions, production processes and professional practice.
We will recruit textile and fashion designers, designer-makers, manufacturers and other relevant practitioners to participate in the research.
Workshop participation will be subject to a separate research recruitment and consent process.
Full details and the call for participants will be published here.
