Welcome to a special summer episode of Material Matters. With listeners going on holiday and looking for something to read, rather than investigate a material it seemed like a good idea to talk about a new book instead. 

Robin Givhan is the Washington Post’s senior critic-at-large, writing about politics, race and the arts. She won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2006 and is the author of The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History. 

Her latest book is entitled Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh, which charts the life of the late designer from his childhood in Rockford, Illinois to his position as artistic director at Louis Vuitton menswear collection in Paris, the first black person to serve in that role in the brand’s 164-year history. 

It also illustrates the profound changes that occurred in the luxury fashion industry over his short but fascinating career.

In this episode, we talk about: why fashion matters; the role of the critic; Virgil Abloh’s ‘confounding’ qualities; how he created an extraordinary community; his imprint on fashion; how the world of luxury shifted around him; being the ‘ultimate non-perfectionist’; his controversial 3 per cent philosophy; judging value; craft and luxury; why the designer was ‘the right kind of Black man’; a pivotal relationship with rapper and producer Kanye West; the importance of T shirts; how Abloh became artistic director of Louis Vuitton's menswear collection; his tragic death; and his legacy. 

To buy a copy of Make it Ours, priced £20, from Material Matters contact us at: [email protected]

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Sabine Marcelis is a Rotterdam-based designer and artist who, in her own words, is ‘forever in search of magical moments within materials’. She’s probably best known for her work in glass, resin and stone, which often plays with light and water. 

However, most recently, she has been part of R100, a project with Hydro, which asks a group of internationally renowned designers to create pieces from 100 per cent post-consumer aluminium, sourced and produced within a 100-kilometre radius. It will be shown at Material Matters Copenhagen at Gammel Dok, Christianshavn from 18-20 June. 

Over the years, Sabine has collaborated with brands such as Vitra, Renault and IKEA and won numerous awards, including Designer of the Year at the Dezeen Awards in 2024 and the Monocle magazine Designer of the Year in 2023.

In this episode we talk about: working with Hydro’s recycled aluminium; trying to find the limits of any project; not designing chairs; her relationship with resin and how best to use it; fountains; working in Mies’ Barcelona Pavilion; learning from IKEA; growing up on a flower farm; snowboarding; fighting for her ideas in Eindhoven; never wanting to work for anyone else; forging her studio in Rotterdam; and finding inspiration in unexpected places. 

Material Matters with Sabine Marcelis is sponsored by 3daysofdesign.

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David Venables is the European director for the American Hardwood Export Council. Over the last 20 years, the organisation has created an array of extraordinary installations, sculptures and products – working with the likes of Alison Brooks, Waugh Thistleton, Heatherwick Studio, Jaime Hayon, Benedetta Tagliabue, and Stefan Diez to name just a few – that extoll the virtues of wood in general and US hardwood in particular. 

Its latest installation. No. 1 Common, will launch at this year’s Material Matters Copenhagen, which runs from 18-20 June at Gammel Dok, Christianshavn, and includes new pieces from Andu Masebo, Anna Maria Øfstedal Eng, and Daniel Schofield.  

Importantly, David is someone steeped in the wood industry from birth. This is a man who really knows his material.

In this episode we talk about: AHEC’s new installation at Material Matters and why it’s vital to promote what nature provides; how the organisation chooses the architects and designers it works with; his post-Covid desire to promote a ‘lost’ generation of creatives; the relationship between fashion and wood; the history of the US hardwood forest and why it’s an environmental success story; the benefits of cutting down trees; President Trump, tariffs and selling American materials globally; growing up in the family saw mill; being fired as a salesperson; and, ultimately, why wood is his passion. 

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Rosa Whiteley is a designer, writer and researcher, who trained as an architect at Manchester School of Architecture and the Royal College of Art. 

Subsequently, she has worked within Cooking Sections, the Turner Prize nominated design and art collective, as a project manager and lead researcher and, since 2021, she has been the director of Material Research for CLIMAVORE CIC, which is a long-term, site-responsive project, exploring how to eat as humans change climates.

As part of her practice, she has been working on the islands of Skye and Raasay in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, to develop building materials from waste seashells. 

In this episode she discusses: how CLIMAVORE promotes alternative ways of eating and living; issues around salmon fishing; the creation of a ‘multi-species intertidal table’ (and what exactly that might be); encouraging local restaurants to stop serving salmon and use bivalves instead; how that created a surfeit of shells; using the shells to create lime mortar and making tiles; worries around the circular economy; training as an architect but not wanting to build; and the politics of air and atmospheres.

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Claudy Jongstra is a Dutch artist and designer who has become globally renowned for her, often monumental, textile installations and tapestries made from wool. 

After establishing her studio in Friesland in the Dutch countryside during 2001, she started an ecological venture, which involved maintaining a herd of indigenous sheep and creating a biodynamic farm near her studio to grow plants used for natural dyes – effectively combining her art with ecological stewardship. 

Her work is in the permanent collections of a number of museums such the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt in New York and the V&A in London. And she has won a slew of awards, including the 2022 Interior Design Hall of Fame Award. 

Not only that, she designed costumes for the Star Wars movies.

In this episode she discusses: the ‘intelligence’ of wool; leaving her job and taking two years to understand the material; setting up her own farm; the organic nature of her career path; being an activist; the process behind her extraordinary pieces; the special qualities of the Drenthe Heath sheep; why we burn so much wool; the secrets of Burgundian Black; making really big pieces; her love of cooking; issues with the vintage clothing industry; working with her son; oh and creating costumes for the Jedi…

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Tim Minshall is an expert in manufacturing and innovation. He is the inaugural Dr John C Taylor professor of innovation at the University of Cambridge, the head of the Engineering Department’s Institute for Manufacturing and a fellow of Churchill College.

Importantly too, he has published a new book. Your Life is Manufactured: How we make things, why it matters and how we can do it better does exactly what it says on the front cover, working as a primer for our complex global manufacturing system and illustrating how we make, move, and consume the materials we extract, grow, or create.

In this episode we discuss: different nations' attitude to manufacturing; Covid’s effect on global supply chains; how he treated a hospital like a factory during the pandemic; tariffs; lettuces; why reducing waste has led to fragility in our global system; manufacturing and trade-offs; the effect war has on innovation; not being a fan of GDP; the history of the shipping container; material change and the kettle; silicon and the digital revolution; creating too much data and AI; making things more sustainably; green hushing; and saving the planet through manufacturing. 

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Seetal Solanki describes herself as a materials translator and has been in the vanguard of material thinking since she launched her practice, Ma-tt-er, in 2015. 

Three years later she produced the hugely influential book, Why Materials Matter, and she has gone on to work with a variety of brands, including Nike, Selfridges and Potato Head in Bali, as well as teaching at institutions such as Central Saint Martins (where, incidentally, she graduated from the Textile Futures MA)  and the Royal College of Art. 

Her latest project saw her joining forces with designer Jorge Penades in Madrid for Uprooted, an exhibition that explored Spain’s olive oil industry. 

In this episode, we talk about: helping people build a relationship with materials; why she’s working with olive tree roots; interviewing materials; her fascination with cookery (and her love of a cheese soufflé); growing up in Leicester and feeling rejected from her home city; the spiritual side of materials; being ‘broken’ by Central Saint Martins as a student; material discrimination; how her practice was built on frustration; and why she’s in a hopeful place. 

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Callum Robinson makes all sorts of things out of wood, as well as being the creative director of Method Studio, the company he established with his wife, Marisa Giannasi, 15 years ago. 

In 2024, he published a fascinating, lyrical memoir. Ingrained: The making of a craftsman, tells the story of his lifelong fascination with his material of choice, his relationship with his woodworker father, and running a small business in straightened times. 

Essentially, it’s a pean to the joy and importance of making things with your hands and to nature itself.

In this episode we talk about: converting an old saw mill into his workshop; publishing Ingrained; the relationship between writing and making; getting into a ‘flow’ state; growing up with wood and how it makes him feel ‘at home’; the material’s ability to ‘radiate nostalgia’; why elm is ‘the tenacious, swaggering dandy of the forest’; the danger of woodworking; machine tool vertigo; his pivotal relationship with his father; opening his own store; and re-training his hands.

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Neil Brownsword is one of the most intriguing – and uncompromising – ceramic artists currently practicing in the UK. His work is inspired by the de-industrialisation of his home city, Stoke-on-Trent, and, appropriately enough, his career in ceramics began when he worked as an apprentice in the Wedgwood factory as a 16 year old in the mid 1980s. Subsequently, he went on to study at the University of Cardiff and the Royal College of Art. 

Neil’s research examines the manufacturing histories of North Staffordshire’s ceramic industry, and the effects globalisation has had upon people, place and traditional skills in recent decades. 

Over the years, he has won numerous awards and exhibited across the globe, while at the same time maintaining an important career in education. He is currently a professor of ceramics at the University of Staffordshire.

In this episode we talk about: his latest show at the Crafts Study Centre in Farnham, Surrey; historical copying in the ceramics industry; inducing failure; working at Wedgwood on a YTS scheme; being good at art in school; creating his early, sexually-charged pieces; not selling pots; why his work changed radically at the turn of the century; escaping the ‘stranglehold’ of narrative; becoming ‘a post-industrial factory manager’; bridling against ‘factory tourism’; putting industrial artisans on a cultural platform; investigating the ‘marginalised potential of the past’; and why it’s important to safeguard rather than preserve skill.

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Zandra Rhodes is one of the most recognisable and influential figures in fashion, as well as the founder of the Fashion and Textile Museum in London. 

Describing herself as both ‘chaotic’ and ‘fastidious’, she possesses a unique sense of colour and pattern. Over the years, she has dressed some of the world’s most famous people from Freddie Mercury, Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Harry and Diana Ross to royals including Princess Anne, Princess Margaret and Princess Diana. She has also appeared on TV shows such as Absolutely Fabulous and Masterchef. 

Zandra was made a Dame in 2015, while this year, she published an intimate biography, entitled Iconic: My Life in Fashion in 50 Objects, which shines a light on an utterly extraordinary career. 

In this Yuletide episode, we talk about: Zandra’s ‘more is more’ home and studio; the importance of working with your hands; festive fun with cult actor Divine; her collecting habit; becoming interested in textile design at art college; her love of drawing; nearly meeting Andy Warhol; why pink is a ‘complicated’ colour; how print leads the garment in her work; breaking America; Lauren Bacall stepping on a pin in her studio;  working with the royal family and dressing Freddie Mercury; the influence of friendship and travel on her practice; dealing with cancer; and founding London’s Fashion and Textile Museum.

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