One of my friends recently went out to Tilburg in the Netherlands to visit the Texteil Lab and Museum. It is a place that anyone from students to textile designers to architects can go and receive expert help to develop their ideas.
It works slightly differently depending on who is going. For students, they would need to visit in a group of three to work on a collaborative project for three days with their own personal technician. They would have access to a huge range of materials with which to explore their ideas and industrial equipment to create samples or a small production. Designers can use the expertise of the technicians and the huge range of materials to push their ideas or use it as a place to get their designs produce to industry standards but in small quantities. The industry grade equipment means that anything produced can be replicated by other companies for larger scale manufacturing.
The Texteil Lab has a huge range of equipment in the following areas:
- Weave (Jacquard and powerloom)
- Knit
- Embroidery
- Tufting
- Ribbon Making
- Laser Technology
- Digital Print
Students only generally have access to weave, knit and print but I believe this is negotiable. It sounds as though the Texteil lab have particular expertise in weave.
Not only can one develop, experiment and see your ideas become a reality but they have the technology to enable you to produce fully functioning textiles, for example fully fire proofing.
As well as the lab they have a museum and as part this they house some historical looms. Unfortunately, these looms are not set up to work but have cloth and yarn in place to show how they would have worked. How I would love to go there to clean up the looms and get them working!
Their website is full of inspiration, have a look: www.textiellab.nl/en/
The Texteil Lab and Museum sounds like an amazing and inspiration place to visit!