The Bradford Textile Society

29/03/2026

The Bradford Textile Society Design Competition is now LIVE for entries!

Check out our brand new website bradfordtextilesociety.org.uk where you can find all the categories and Special Awards.

There is a total of £15,000 in prize money to be won - thanks to the generosity of our sponsors.

The Competition is open to all students studying at UK universities and colleges, as well as independent designers from the UK.

The closing date for entries is midnight on Friday 9th May – so don’t delay in submitting your wonderful textile designs.

Good Luck !

04/02/2026

We are excited to welcome Shelley Hollingdrake of the SDC - Society of Dyers and Colourists as the fourth speaker of our lecture series this month.

Shelley will explore key pieces from the SDC archive and offers insight into the many facets of colour in its diverse forms.

Join us on Wednesday 25th February 2026 19:30-20:30 for what is promising to be a fascinating and very colourful webinar!

Tickets can be purchased via this Eventbrite link:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bts-lecture-shelley-hollingdrake-the-sdc-archive-tickets-1982350189781?aff=oddtdtcreator

We look forward to seeing you!

Join Shelley as she explores key pieces from the archive and offers insight into the many facets of colour in its diverse forms.

14/01/2026

Join us for our next lecture on Wednesday, 28 January 2026 at 7:30pm with Tartan Ambassador Brian Wilton 🎉

Brian will take us on a captivating journey through the history, origins, and contemporary design of tartan, sharing insights from his lifelong dedication to this iconic cloth.

🖥️ Online event- Registration and tickets available via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/brian-wilton-tartan-ambassador-tickets-1979961684698?aff=oddtdtcreatorJoin

A truly remarkable talk by a fascinating speaker — not to be missed!

A fascinating journey through the history and symbolism of tartan.

15/10/2025

**The Bradford Textile Society Lecture Series returns!**

Join us for our first lecture in the 2025/2026 Lecture Series and an inspiring evening with Peter Davenport as he shares his career journey in journalism and beyond.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to learn from an international journalist and business mentor.

Link for more details and to get tickets can be found on our Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/trains-boats-planes-journeys-in-journalism-and-beyond-tickets-1829920424249?aff=oddtdtcreator

12/10/2025

What an incredible celebration on Friday, 10.10.2025 marking 100 years of The Bradford Textile Society’s Annual Design Competition!

An exhibition of UK’s brightest textile design talent featuring outstanding textile design from students and independent designers across 26 universities and colleges! 🌟

Congratulations to all our winners and commendations, and thank you for joining us to celebrate your amazing achievements! Please tag your day’s experience with us so that we can share more wonderful moments of that day on our story! 😊

A special thanks to Mary-Ann Dunkley, Design Director at Liberty, for her inspiring and memorable lecture on her creative journey.

And of course, heartfelt thanks to our wonderful sponsors for their generous and ongoing support of the Society’s Annual Design Competition.

Here’s to another century of creativity, innovation & textile design excellence!

09/05/2025

***DEADLINE EXTENDED***
For our 100 Year Special Centenary Competition 1925 -2025!✨

A £1,000 Special Prize from the Society will be available this year with the winner chosen from ALL ENTRANTS!

Over 60,000 students have entered The Bradford Textile Society Design Competition over the last 100 years!

We are confident that within your Textile Design Portfolio you have an entry worthy of being considered for this special Prize!

Hurry, get your entries in by next Friday 16th May 2025 Midnight!

27/03/2025

**The Bradford Textile Society’s Annual Design Competition 2025 is now open for your digital entries!**

The competition is open to all UK based HE students and independent designers.

The link to digital submissions is now available on our website’s home page.

Deadline for all digital submissions is Friday, 9.5.2025.

We recommend that you look at:

- digital submissions guidelines and the design competition prospectus on our website.

- Our October webinar about this year’s competition (on our youtube channel)

A reminder that 2025 is our Competition’s Centenary year and to celebrate we will be offering a one-off Special Award £1,000 prizeto one winner which may be chosen from any entrant, whether they received a prize in a competition category or not!

For any queries, please do not hesitate to get in touch [email protected]

Good luck!

22/02/2025

Our three 2024 travel bursary winners Robin, Grace and Vaishnavi had a wonderful time in Paris visiting Première Vision trade fair.

The three winners were busy soaking up trend inspiration and networking with industry.

Our winners had the pleasure to meet up with the Bradford Textile Society Chairman David Gallimore on stand 6E20 and learn more about the business of textiles.

They also met up with Peter Ackroyd, chairman of the Campaign for Wool and the Vice President of the Strategy Board of Premiere Vision Paris to gain more insight about the show.

We extend thanks to our friends , judges of our P1 print competition category, who allowed our winners a sneaky peak to their beautiful current and past collections during the very busy time of the show.

A special thanks goes to our competition sponsors of the travel bursary prize - the CIWMT, for their continuous and generous support.

10/01/2025

🎉Happy New Year to all our followers.🎉

We are excited to start 2025 with our next talk at the end of this month with guest speaker, Charlie Allen ; Master Tailor, Menswear Designer and former Head of Menswear at RCA

This is promising to be a wonderful presentation reviewing Allen’s rich career, from bespoke menswear tailoring, to his Umbro collaboration for the design of the 2009 England team kit, to his designs for films and even the design of Robert De Niro’s iconic orange suit for the Warburton’s Good Bagels Ad!

Join us for this online Webinar presentation on Thursday 30th January 2025 7:30PM-8:30PM through Eventbrite.

Link to the BTS Lecture series on Eventbrite - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/the-bradford-textile-society-95556575303

We look forward to having you!

16/12/2024

Bradford Textile Society President, Malcolm Campbell, was awarded The SDC Gold Medal at The Merchant Adventurers Hall on Friday 8th November 2024 for ‘prolonged and outstanding contributions to colour education’.

The award was granted to celebrate his achievements on the Malcolm the weaver children’s education project teaching 4 to 8 year old children about textiles, colour, weaving, nature, the environment and sustainability.

The gold medal and certificate were presented by President of the SDC, Dr Susan Kay-Williams who was also our guest speaker in November.

Malcolm said: “I am proud and honoured to receive this award for the work we have done teaching children about textiles, colour and nature. So far the books are in 9,000 primary schools around the country and our target is to get them in to all 21,000 schools in U.K.”

The ‘Malcolm the Weaver’ project is also planned to go global over the coming years, encouraging children around The World to follow a career in textiles.

11/11/2024

We are excited to welcome Dr Susan Kay-Williams, our next speaker who will deliver a talk titled: ‘Developments in colour in the 18th Century’ on Thursday 28/11/2024 7:30PM (online).

The talk will explore dyers’ skills and how they led to new styles of embroidery for fashion and textiles in the 18th century.

Dr Susan Kay Williams is an active researcher and the author of ‘The story of colour in textiles’. She is the former chief executive pf the Royal School of Needlework and currently president of the Society of Dyers and Colourists.

The talk will be online, link to Eventbrite registration:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dr-susan-kay-williams-developments-in-colour-in-the-18th-century-tickets-1072948089619?utm_experiment=test_share_listing&aff=ebdsshios

Cost for non-members is £5.

The society offers an active schedule of exciting events which are free to our members.

More about our upcoming events and talks: https://bradfordtextilesociety.org.uk/events/

Annual subscription fees are: £5 for students/ £25 for individuals/ £50 for corporate. If you are interested in becoming a member, check out our website’s membership page: https://bradfordtextilesociety.org.uk/membership/

For any membership queries, please get in touch- [email protected]