Centre for Advanced Textiles

ANNOUNCEMENT: CAT Digital Bursary Award Winner 2026, Beatrice Arden.
We are delighted to announce final year Sculpture and Environmental Art student Beatrice Arden as our award recipient. This is the first year we have extended the application process to all schools across GSA. The quality and quantity of applications was high, making the judging both great fun and challenging. Thank you to all applicants, and to our judges; Mairi Mackenzie, Laura Spring Studio Spring, and Anna Campbell-Jones.

To give you a flavour of Beatrice's application, "My final year project uses textile practices to examine the relationship between human labour and machinery, drawing a parallel between early nineteenth-century Luddite resistance in Britain and current issues surrounding artificial intelligence and technological advancement. The Luddites were textile workers in Britain who organised against industrial machinery which threatened job security and working conditions.

I will explore the story of the Luddites - their leaders, ideology, and actions - through a combination of textile processes, including jacquard weaving, digital embroidery, hand embroidery, and CAT’s printing machinery, investigating the tension between slow, tactile, age-old textile traditions and the speed and abstraction of modern technology.

Rather than rejecting these machines or presenting them as inherently harmful, this project centres the experiences of the people affected by technological change. By weaving, embroidering, and printing the stories of the Luddites using the very machines they once resisted (such as the jacquard loom) I aim to reinsert working people into the narrative of technological progress. The work positions textile machinery as a site where human labour, history, and contemporary debates intersect.”


Beatrice receives,
£500 credit towards digital print and base fabrics.
£250 cash to contribute to your project costs.
Consultation and development of your ideas with CAT staff to a value of £250.

Happy New Year and welcome to 2026. We enter 2026 continuing to celebrate our 25th year. In 2025 we hosted our celebration exhibition 'Catalogue: 25 years of the Centre for Advanced Textiles', we joined industry specialists at Skypark for 'Interwoven', and as we rounded off 2025 we invested in new finishing equipment to streamline our production. It was big year for us and we very much look forward to continuing to mark our 25th year with exciting collaborations and developments. Our upgraded industrial finishing equipment, by Setema, offers possibilities for coating fabric, improved finishing effects, and broader capacity to treat different substrates. Watch this space for more announcements about how we can enhance your textile prints.

Scan the QR code to apply for the CAT Bursary 2025-26. We look forward to receiving your application.

We will be launching our Centre for Advanced Textiles Bursary Award on Monday 8th December. If you are a GSA final year undergraduate you can apply.
https://centreforadvancedtextilesbursaryaward.wordpress.com

The award is in its 9th year. New for this year, we are inviting all GSA final year undergraduates to apply. The winner will receive;

£500 credit towards digital print and base fabrics. £250 cash to contribute to your project costs. Consultation and development of your ideas with CAT staff to a value of £250; equivalent to around one full day of staff time.

As part of our 25th Anniversary celebrations we were invited to Skypark (our main sponsors) to join in with Interface: Business and Creativity at the Centre for Advanced Textiles. The event took place in mid-October at Skypark 2 with guests and speakers invited from industry. Kris Kesiak was on board taking some photographs of the evening. His shots include the lovely display boards created by Christine Jones. The boards let the audience read and see more about our International clients; featuring Sef Farruggia, Yola Maria Tsolis, Carson & Co, Koku Concept, and Scottish clients; Helen Ruth Scarves, Ruby Flowers, MacMic Group and Slanj Kilts, as well as the Catalogue Exhibition, Classic Textiles, Education and Knowledge Transfer, and our print process.

The event was hosted by Skypark, with Alison McCrae, Senior Director at the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, facilitating the question and answer panel.
The panel featured, GSA graduate Gregor Aikman, Founder and Chief Product Officer of STAC based in Skypark, Anthony Burns, Chief Operating Officer ACS Clothing, Alan Shaw, Centre Manager, CAT, and Vicky Begg, Industry Co-ordinator, CAT.

PHOTO CREDITS: Kris Kesiak
DESIGN BOARDS: Christine Jones Makes

We are nearing the end of our exhibition, 'Catalogue' is open the remainder of this week until 4 30pm on Saturday 18th October. Please make the most of these last few days and grab the opportunity to see all the exhibits. We have loved the experience and never tire of explaining to visitors how our exhibitors have created their textiles, products and art. 😊

Sharing a nice little 4 star ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️review of our Exhibition by Susan Mansfield of The Scotsman.

The CAT Team at the opening night of our show. Brushing up nicely. We are standing in front of 'Silken Refuge' by Liz Ingram and Bernd Hildebrandt.

Everyone, the time has come to celebrate with us and join us at our 25th anniversary exhibition, Catalogue: 25 Years of the Centre for Advanced Textiles at The Glasgow School of Art. The show opens on Friday 12th September and runs until 18th October. We'd love to see you!

You are warmly invited to join us for the preview of our new exhibition ‘CATALOGUE: 25 years of the Centre for Advanced Textiles’, which opens in the Garnethill Gallery at 5pm on Friday 12th September. The preview is free but ticketed – book via Eventbrite (link in bio). The Centre for Advanced Textiles (CAT) at The Glasgow School of Art celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2025 with the exhibition 'CATALOGUE: 25 years of the Centre for Advanced Textiles' at the Garnethill Gallery and Window on Heritage, showcasing its ground-breaking journey and lasting impact on the textile industry. This retrospective highlights pivotal moments from CAT’s quarter-century of innovation, underscoring its crucial role in Scotland’s textile, creative arts, fine art, and design sectors, as well as in education. The exhibition features a curated selection of client works from selected periods and disciplines, including apparel, home furnishings, and contemporary art pieces, making an impact across fashion design, TV production, interior design, exhibitions and contemporary visual arts. The exhibition includes work by Grayson Perry, Giles Deacon, Jilli Blackwood, Laura Spring, Kerry Nixon, Fraser Taylor, Erin McQuarrie, Liz Ingram & Bernd Hildebrandt, Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation, Robert Stewart, Garnethill Multicultural Centre and Linn with Timorous Beasties. Skypark, the headline sponsor for this exhibition, is a longstanding supporter of Scottish arts and culture with additional support from the Incorporation of Bonnetmakers and Dyers of Glasgow, who are long-term sponsors of an annual GSA graduate award. The exhibition is on show in the Garnethill Gallery from 13 September – Saturday 18 October 2025. The gallery is open Monday to Saturday 10am – 4.30pm and closed on Sundays. *Please note the gallery is closed on Monday 29th September @catdigital @skyparkglasgow @glasgowschoolart @scottishcontemporaryart @glasgow_art_map @alanmeasles @gilesdeacon_ @jilliblackwood.art @_studiospring_ @kerrynixoncreative @haxtonstudio @erin.mcquarrie @monkeychinchin @ingram1333 @robinlucienneday @robert_stewart_design @garnethillmcc @linnproducts @timorous_beasties @gsaarchives

I collected 24m of silk habotai for scarves today. Thanks to Alan for helping me fold it all up! The Drift large silk scarf will be back in stock soon.