Art & Design Saturday club enjoy an M&S Archive Masterclass

Our Saturday Club is attended by 13 to 16-year-olds, who enjoyed a trip to the famous retail company’s Archive at the University of Leeds to receive a Masterclass from industry experts and professional practitioners.

With the theme of the day being Fabric Innovations, students were guided through an evolutionary journey that started with the selling of darning wool for one penny in 1884 to the use of plastic bottles to make recycled polyester in 2024.

To start off the day, club members were given a tour of the M&S Archive, where they were introduced to the company's history, founders and fashionable clothing from over the past 140 years.

They then focused on textile technology before devising a list of materials featured in the collection and inspecting them while discussing each characteristic.

The differences between regenerative, natural and synthetic fibres were also discussed and, to gain a deeper understanding of the uses of specific materials, club members reviewed archival press publications and video commercials.

They next got creative by setting each other styling challenges, where they dug through clothes rails and created outfits based on a brief.

Throughout the activity, the students were challenged to think about what could be the next innovative material and who would benefit from it and, at the end of the day, each person presented their looks and explained what innovative material they had thought of and why.

Commenting on what they enjoyed most about the visit, one club member said: “I learnt about multiple different types of fabrics and how they are made sustainable and useful.”

Another added: “I really liked dressing up with prompts because it was funny and allowed us to be creative.”

A third enthused: “I liked writing design briefs and creating outfits, because it was really fun.”

On the educational benefit, a fourth pointed out: “I learnt about the history of fashion, properties of fabrics and methods of innovation.”

A fifth declared: “I valued the information about the different materials and the history of fashion.”

Our next Art & Design Saturday Club will start on 16^th November, 2024 and run until 12^th July, 2025 on Saturday mornings from 10am to 12noon.

Sessions are free of charge thanks to generous sponsorship from the Guild of Merchant Taylors and open to anybody aged between 13 and 16.

Places can be applied for by visiting here and, as well as experiencing a Masterclass when club members gain rare access to some of the UK’s most creative minds and find out how the skills they have developed during their Saturday sessions can be applied in the real world, students get to showcase their work alongside other National Saturday Clubs during a public exhibition.

The club also gives members the opportunity to access resources and build a creative portfolio without the pressure of exams.

On top of this Fabric Innovations Masterclass with the M&S Archive, previous years’ themes have been Plaster Casting with Tejumola Butler Adenuga, Built Environments with Arup, Clay Modelling with Duncan Hooson and Nature-inspired Art with Yorkshire Sculpture Park.