Professor Becky Earley

Biography

Professor Rebecca (Becky) Earley is UAL Chair in Circular Design Futures, based at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London. She is a sustainable fashion textile designer and circular economy researcher. She develops design strategies for sustainable and circular textiles, covering creative practice methods, material innovation, low-impact production, and behaviour change among designers and users. Her current research explores the social, ‘common good’ questions around design, circular economy and behaviour change. She also coordinates the UAL DESIS Lab for Chelsea, Camberwell and Wimbledon colleges. She directed the Textile Futures Research Centre at Central Saint Martins (2010–2017) and led projects in the Textiles Environment Design research group at Chelsea (1996–2017). She co-founded and directed the Centre for Circular Design (2017–2022).

Becky has led UAL’s contribution to several major international research programmes:
Mistra Future Fashion (2011–2019): She developed and tested The TEN sustainable design strategies, producing guidance for H&M and the Sustainable Fashion Academy. She later explored lifecycle speeds for circular fashion with Filippa K and other Swedish SMEs.
Trash-2-Cash (2015-2018): She led the work on Design Driven Material Innovation on the Horizon 2020 project.
Herewear (2020–2024): She developed the BIO TEN, a set of design approaches that help micro and small businesses work with biobased, local and circular materials. These were later turned into a software tool for Circular Fashion Berlin.

Through her portfolio of knowledge exchange projects, Becky has delivered keynotes, workshops and consultancy, working with organisations to embed sustainable design research in their everyday processes and practices. These include H&M, VF Corporation, John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, Kering and Camira.

Becky completed her MA in Fashion at CSM in 1994. In 1996 she won a New Generation Award at London Fashion Week for her print design work. Her early practice was supported and collected by the Crafts Council, V&A, MFIT NYC, Arts Council England and the Prince’s Youth Business Trust. She began teaching textiles at Chelsea in 1996, and from 1999 her funded research explored recycling and low-impact printing and dyeing. This included the Spindigo natural indigo project, with the Eden Project and scientists at the Universities of Bristol and Exeter. It also included the AHRB-funded projects 5Ways, Worn Again: Rethinking Recycled Textiles and Fire Up. In 2006 she curated the Crafts Council’s Well Fashioned exhibition, which led to her nomination as a Morgan Stanley Great Briton in 2007. She has since curated exhibitions in London, New York and Sweden.

Becky has supervised eight PhD researchers to completion. She currently welcomes enquiries from prospective candidates working on sustainable and circular design practice for fashion textiles and climate resilience. This includes but is not limited to topics such as:

- Circular design strategies for fashion textiles. Developing, testing and applying design frameworks (building on The TEN and BIO TEN)
- Biobased, local and regenerative materials. Design-led approaches to working with new and place-based fibres, dyes and material systems
- Low-impact textile processes. Natural dyeing, low-impact printing, and recycling or upcycling techniques
- Design-driven material innovation. The designer’s role in interdisciplinary projects with material scientists and engineers
- Practice research methods in textile design. Making as a way of knowing, and how practice research is situated within science-led projects
- Design for behaviour and mindset change. Shifting how designers, businesses and wearers think about and use textiles/clothing
- Time, speed and lifecycles in fashion. Designing for different garment lifespans, use and care, and end of life
- Social innovation and design for the common good. Community-based and participatory approaches to sustainability
- Fashion textiles and climate resilience. Adaptation, local supply chains, and the role of design in a changing climate
- Embedding sustainable design in organisations. Knowledge exchange, design leadership and changing corporate cultures from within
- Curating and communicating sustainable fashion. Exhibitions, archives and public engagement as research