Interwoven: Exploring Materials and Structures

A major new guide to mastering textile design that interweaves technical knowledge, artistic expression, and storytelling.

Interwoven: Exploring Materials and Structures is a joyous exploration into woven textile design. It dissects woven structures along with the fibers and yarns used to make them, giving exceptional insight into the world of fabrics.

Interwoven outlines how the diverse history of textiles has been intertwined with human innovation from prehistoric twining and the invention of the binary code, through to today’s new material discoveries and urgent quest for sustainability. By investigating the past and present of textiles and narrating their cross-cultural roles, meanings, and influences, Interwoven illustrates how textiles have been used to tell human stories throughout the ages.

The book also introduces a new pedagogical method for woven textile design studies, inviting the reader to take a seat at the loom and weave their own story. Detailed instructions for creating textiles, ranging from fibers and yarns to basic weaves, multilayered constructions, and digital jacquard designs, are interspersed with emotionally rich, tactile textile stories by Aalto ARTS design students. Interwoven masterfully combines technical knowledge, artistic expression, and storytelling to create a unique guide to textile design.

400 color illustrations

Maarit Salolainen is Professor of Textile Design at Aalto University, Finland, and Head of the MA Major in Fashion and Textile Design. She is a textile expert and creative director with extensive international experience across the textile industry, passionate about bringing textile knowledge to interdisciplinary platforms. At Aalto University, Professor Salolainen has developed higher education studies in textile design, focusing on renewing studio pedagogy and linking textile studies to fashion education and other design disciplines. As a creative director within the global textile manufacturing industry, she has led the design and development of fabrics and interior textile collections for international textile editors and brands, from research and initial concept through technical and creative development to final quality decisions and color coordination.