When Li Edelkoort and Philip Fimmano decided to fund a textile prize to bring attention to the importance of fabric in the design world and name the prize after me, I didn’t realize what a wonderful experience it would be.
 
As they toured the world they announced the prize to students from Finland to Australia and from Indonesia to Austria. Over 200 entries came in. I learned of schools from Boras in Sweden to the Academy of Art in San Francisco, as well as familiar schools like Parsons and FIT.
 
It was gratifying that many students were concerned with zero waste as well as other green imperatives.
 
The knitwear was phenomenal, really textile art.

It was not till I saw all the finalists hung in the wonderful Industry City warehouse at Wanted Design in Brooklyn that I realised how impressed I was by one entrant’s use of materials not usually found in textiles. It was the work of Piero d’Angelo from Central St. Martins in London. He uses wire, cables, plastics, and in one of his textiles he used hair extension threads with liquid latex to trap the ends’ warp weaving. He even added a colourful design to the latex.
 
What I particularly liked about his work is that with classic weaves of crepe or twill, he used unexpected materials and called it a hybrid between human and machine. To me that meant he was attempting to humanize the production of textiles.
 
 
Dorothy Waxman