Irene Griffin

I am senior technical instructor for mixed media on the Textile Design programme with a background in bridal, evening and children’s wear manufacture and fashion retail. I graduated from Falmouth University as a textile designer in 2004 and practised as a designer-maker creating women’s wear from reclaimed/recycled and vintage fabrics.

Since I began working here in 2007 I have delivered workshops in hand, domestic, industrial & digital machine embroidery as well as textile colouration natural vegetable dyes. In 2017, with the support of the campus gardeners I established a dye plant area in the walled garden and plan to create a map and sample book for students, staff, visitors and researchers to use. Outside university I have taught natural dyeing workshops with local company Lancaster & Cornish and at local arts spaces within the Cornish community. 

I am also currently a part-time research assistant working on the S4S - Designing a Sensibility for Sustainable Clothing project with the Department of Politics at the University of Exeter’s Environment and Sustainability Institute based here on Penryn campus. In this role I have recently organised and co-hosted the Sustainable Clothing Futures Symposium which has been a natural succession to the Applying Cornish Wisdom symposium event I hosted as part of my post-graduate degree. Working as an educator and researcher allows me to communicate and embed current and innovative sustainable thinking and design ethos to the students I work with. If you wear clothes, then you’re involved is a key statement I use to engage as many people in this movement for which I am a passionate advocate. The journey to an environmentally sane fashion horizon continues….