Kew’s Material World festival champions a greener future for fashion

Kew’s first festival devoted to fashion and textiles – spotlighting sustainability
Radical new materials featured include seaweed, pineapple leaves, nettles and fungi
Major new commissions from artist Nnenna Okore and designer Lottie Delamain
Installations explore the history of cotton and amplify voices of indigenous artisans
Discounted ticket options include £1 entry
Festival is supported by Cazenove Capital

This autumn, leading artists, award-winning designers and expert horticulturists come together at Kew Gardens in London for ‘Material World’ (20 Sept – 2 Nov). Kew’s iconic Temperate House is transformed into a bold and hopeful exploration of plants, fungi and fashion, delving deeper into the stories within our wardrobe through art and design to inspire positive change in the fashion industry.

Fashion is at a turning point. Between 80 and 100 billion new clothing garments are produced globally every year and 87% of the materials and fibres used to make clothing will end up in landfills or incinerators. To create a sustainable fashion system, we need to change our relationship with how we wear clothes, as well as the ways we make them. At the heart of Material World is the invitation to reflect: how do our clothes connect us to nature, and how can they become part of a future that restores rather than depletes? Material World is more than a festival, it is a call to action.

What will visitors see?

A display created with London College of Fashion (UAL) alumni debuts radical new plant- and fungi-based designs curated by the current MA Fashion Curation and Cultural Programming students, proving that sustainability is not just a trend:

Silvia Acién creates regenerative knitwear from pineapple fibres, nettles, and Mediterranean grasses, weaving together rural heritage and future-facing craft. Acién also experiments with natural dyes made from invasive plants and bacterial pigments, reducing chemical and water use. Her work has been shown at London, Paris, Hong Kong and India Fashion Weeks, UNESCO, VOGUE, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, and in partnership with the United Nations.
Eirinn Hayhow’s Healing Puffers and Plant Leather Garments use plant-stuffed biomaterial shells infused with foraged herbs like lavender, chamomile, hawthorn, rosemary and valerian. Her reimagined puffer jackets shimmer with crushed crystals and emit the subtle scent of dried herbs, exploring how fashion can support emotional and environmental well-being.
Jessie Von Curry & Vega Hertel weave Scottish seaweed, sourced using sustainable methods, into textiles including trousers. With over 12,000 known species, seaweeds require no land, fertiliser or freshwater, making them a vital ally in regenerative design.
Beth Williams envisions compostable garments designed to decompose straight back into the earth, challenging the extractive norms of mainstream fashion and imagining textiles that nourish the earth instead of depleting it. These biodegradable knit textiles are crafted from compostable, regenerative fibres, including pineapple (Ananas comosus), lotus stem (Nelumbo nucifera) and Seacell, a seaweed-eucalyptus blend.

Dr. Jessica Bugg, Dean of the School of Media & Communication, London College of Fashion, says: “I’m delighted that MA Fashion Curation and Cultural Programming students have been able to contribute their innovative storytelling skills to Kew’s first-ever festival devoted to fashion and textiles. This is a wonderful opportunity for our students to work across disciplines, in a real world and awe-inspiring context, curating the garments and display for this event. This partnership with Kew has enabled us to connect through our shared priorities of sustainability and wellbeing for people and the planet”.

Major new creative commissions

Australian-born Nigerian artist, educator and environmentalist, Nnenna Okore is a champion for the power of art in engaging people with ecological issues. Suspended 20m high in the heart of the world’s largest surviving Victorian glasshouse, Between Earth and Sky is crafted from biodegradable materials in the form of vast wing-like forms to create a vibrant and fluid installation, inspiring reflection on ecological responsibility.

Global Threads - a newly planted garden created by award-winning designer Lottie Delamain - seeks to re-establish an often-lost connection between what we wear and what we grow. For thousands of years, we have worn plants, growing and cultivating them for their pigments and fibres, but fast fashion has severed the links between plants and what we wear. Beds feature plants that create dyes and fibres, bordered by ‘waste’ textiles from local charity shops to highlight the detrimental impact of fast fashion.

Natural dye specialist Kate Turnbull, textile expert Carry Somers and artist Becca Smith worked alongside Kew's Youth Forum and attendees at Kew's Community Open Week to craft Threads of the Canopy. This large-scale textile map of Kew Gardens weaves the stories of Kew’s trees - using naturally dyed embroidery threads, tree-based printing inks and hand-carved blocks, each individual piece of stitch-work represents a tree at Kew that provides dye or fibre for textiles.

In How Cotton Became King, writer and artist Michael McMillan, working with Dubmorphology and flautist Rowland Sutherland, has created a powerful 17-minute audio-visual installation tracing cotton’s entanglement with colonialism, capitalism and globalisation. Meanwhile, What the Fibres Remember, a multimedia piece by the League of Artisans, amplifies the voices of farmers and craftspeople from Colombia, India and Peru, offering wisdom and sustainable practices rooted in generations of care.

Paul Denton, Director of Creative Programming and Exhibitions at RBG Kew says: “We are thrilled to be launching Material World, a festival that explores the transformative potential of plants and fungi in fashion. This celebration of sustainability brings together art, design, and horticulture to engage visitors in rethinking how we approach our wardrobes, highlighting the connection between natural materials and fashion to inspire positive change in how we consume. At RBG Kew, we believe in the power of plants to shape a better future, and Material World invites everyone to discover the role they can play in driving a more sustainable fashion industry.”

Oliver Gregson, CEO, Wealth Management, Cazenove Capital, says: "Sustainability is one of the defining challenges—and opportunities—of our generation. As stewards of wealth, we carry not just a responsibility, but a real opportunity to help shape a more sustainable and equitable future. We are proud to support Kew Gardens and their leadership in addressing biodiversity loss and pioneering nature-based solutions to the interconnected climate and ecological crises. At Cazenove Capital, we believe our greatest impact comes from using our platform, partnerships, and purpose to help clients shape what they want to achieve in their lives and with their legacies - putting our expertise, capabilities, and collective knowledge at their disposal in a way that works best for them. Not just rooted in wealth, but with positive change."

At the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, we’re dedicated to harnessing the power of plants and fungi to end the extinction crisis and secure a future for all life on Earth. With our world-leading research, global partnerships and beloved gardens – home to the world’s most diverse collections of plants and fungi – we’re using our trusted voice to shape policy and practice worldwide. As a charity we rely on the critical support of our visitors, not only to sustain the gardens, but to protect global plant and fungal biodiversity for the benefit of our planet and humanity.

For more information, images, or to unsubscribe from this mailing list, please contact the Press Office at pr@kew.org.

Hi-res media images can be downloaded here.

Notes to Editors

About Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a world-famous scientific and horticultural institution and conservation charity, whose mission is to understand and protect plants and fungi for the wellbeing of people and the future of all life on Earth. It is internationally respected for its outstanding collections, horticultural and scientific expertise in plant and fungal diversity, conservation and sustainable development in the UK and around the globe.

Kew Gardens, with its 132 hectares of historic, landscaped gardens, is also a major attraction for international and London visitors alike. Dating back to 1759, the site has a rich history and was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July 2003. Combined visitor numbers with Wakehurst, Kew’s wild botanic garden in Sussex, total over 2.5 million per year. Wakehurst is home to the Millennium Seed Bank, the largest wild plant seed bank in the world and a safeguard against the disastrous effects of climate change and biodiversity loss. RBG Kew receives approximately one third of its funding from the UK Government through the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and research councils, with the remaining two thirds coming from supporters, sponsors, memberships and commercial activity including ticket sales. This enables RBG Kew to carry out its vital scientific and educational work.

For tickets and membership options, please visit our website. Since implementing a new accessibility scheme for those in receipt of Universal Credit, Pension Credit and Legacy Benefits, Kew has welcomed over 100,000 visitors with £1 tickets across both UK sites.

About Cazenove Capital
Cazenove Capital is a long-established wealth manager with an absolute focus on preserving and growing our clients’ wealth. Sustainability is central to our core investment approach, and we support clients who chose to go further and invest for a better future for people and planet. When we invest in search of long-term, sustainable returns, our processes are built to make sure we capture opportunities and minimise the risks of failing to adapt to our changing world. Everyone who invests with us benefit from this sustainable approach – and our data shows it translates into higher long-term returns. Our experience of navigating complex markets and adapting to change helps us balance risk and reward. The investment expertise we call upon as part of Schroders, a truly global asset manager, combined with our long-standing experience of advising clients, is what sets us apart. For two centuries we have helped clients look forward to a successful future. With each client, we plan for the long term and invest the time to gain a detailed understanding of their unique circumstances, goals and ambitions. The majority of our clients, and many of our own people, work with us for years, decades and even generations.

About London College of Fashion: Shaping Lives Through Fashion

London College of Fashion, UAL, leads the world in fashion business, media and design education. We’ve been nurturing creative talent for over a century, offering courses in all things fashion. With our philosophy of open and inclusive education, we encourage students to examine the past and question the present. To develop inventive, assertive ideas that challenge social and political agendas. And we give them the skills, opportunities – and above all, the freedom – to put those ideas into practice. From our new home at East Bank, the UK’s newest cultural quarter at the heart of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, we’re forging partnerships, opening up opportunities, and creating connections with east London’s schools, community and industry. Our new home has brought all of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, from all of our three schools, under one roof for the very first time. In doing so, we’ll continue to pioneer how we use fashion business, media and design to shape culture, economics, and society.