• Textiles

Textiles

Textiles are everywhere! Textiles are woven cloths and fabrics and are used all the time, mainly for clothes, bags and baskets. They are also used in carpets, furniture, curtains, towels, tablecloths, beds and in art. Textiles can be made from many materials like wool, silk, Cotton, nylon, and polyester.

Working in textiles can be very creative and could lead to exciting careers in fashion like Gucci and Armani, Textile Design, Art, Costume Designer or a Toymaker.

Morris Michtom was the toymaker who made the first official toy bear called the Teddy Bear. He named it after American President Theodore Roosevelt, whose nickname was Teddy, after seeing a cartoon of the President with a grizzly bear. How many Teddy Bears have you had? Imagine making a toy that millions of people worldwide love and own. Working as a Toymaker could lead to your fantastic creations being sold in Hamleys, next to that giant stuffed giraffe!

We all wear clothes everyday and there are lots of careers in the clothing industry. Glasgow shop Slaters was started in 1973 by Ralph Slater and is still run by the Slater family today. They have 24 stores nationwide, each with it’s own team of tailors and seamstresses offering a free alterations service to all customers. Slaters employ highly trained staff whose job is to make sure you get exactly what you want with the minimum of fuss.

The company is already famous in the Guinness Book of Records for owning the world’s largest menswear store. Slaters sell over 200,000 suits every year and someone has to design, make and fit them, so why not you? Paul Slater could be giving you a job in Slaters!

Another fun job in textiles is Costume Designer. There’s a lot of hard work and time put into designing costumes - my friend designs costumes for shows in Glasgow and she said there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes; zips bursting, bits falling off or ripping so I would imagine it could be stressful. But the show must go on and there would be no show without costumes, or people to design them.