MARCH 2013: Inspired by a Financial Times article on low-waste pattern cutting, Prof Giles Jackson, co-founder of the Liberation Kilt Company, approached Juliana Sissons, lecturer and Designer-in-Residence at the V&A, with an unusual idea. “I had designed a collection of tartans for various social causes and asked if her students might be interested in doing something with them — an antidote of sorts to the typical industry project,” Giles recalls. “We met at the V&A tea rooms to explore how, using the tartans, students might be inspired to confront contemporary issues in creative ways. We needed a focus, and chose human trafficking, a deeply pervasive issue that had long been kept out of public view.”

Pilot projects at Brighton University and Nottingham Trent University engaged students in creating innovative designs confronting this critical issue. Bute Fabrics supplied the tartan swatches, and the Ethical Fashion Forum judged and awarded prizes to the winning teams. 

BRIGHTON WINNING TEAM – GROUP STATEMENT

“Diamonds and palm oil are not typically associated with human trafficking. However, our research revealed that forced labour is widespread across various trades and goods. We focused on forced labour in the palm oil industry in Burma, Sierra Leone, and Malaysia, as well as in the diamond industry in Angola and Sierra Leone.

We aimed to shed light on these lesser-known associations with modern-day slavery. In the diamond industry, many women and young girls are trafficked from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to Angola into diamond mining camps. Diamonds have also funded violent and protracted civil wars, inspiring the term ‘blood diamonds.’

The palm oil industry, often linked with veganism and healthy living, has ties to deforestation and slave labour. Indonesia and Malaysia, which produce the majority of the world’s palm oil, reportedly use forced, child, and trafficked labour.

Our group also explored the idea of branding. Research showed that many trafficked people are branded by their captors, often with a tattooed barcode, symbolizing their treatment as objects for sale. We incorporated barcodes into our designs, particularly in knit and weave, and created a QR code linking to the UN’s human trafficking leaflet.

After creating samples and designing collaborative outfits, we established a sub-brand, ‘Not a Commodity,’ to convey that people should not be viewed as commodities. We used the logo to create swing tags for our samples and garments, featuring a QR code that links to an online document about our project and human trafficking awareness. This could be expanded to include information about the Blueheart tartan and its campaign efforts.”

During the period 2017-2020 Norwich University, Manchester Metropolitan University, Wimbledon College of Arts, and LISAA School of Design in Paris joined the RTP community. We teamed up with UN House, Scotland, and the Human Trafficking Cross Party Group at the Scottish Parliament.

In 2021, coinciding with COP 26, we refocused on climate change, with students at Wuhan Textile University and Donghua University in China, along with the UK counterparts using the Keeling climate change tartan as inspiration. They explored a wide range of issues relating to climate denial, rising sea levels, ocean health, coral bleaching, water pollution, textile waste, nuclear waste, microplastics, packaging, climate adaptation, and the circular economy. Social issues came to the fore, raising questions of heritage, tradition, culture, gender, identity, ritual, community, and wellness. RTP work was showcased at a Scottish Leadership Institute event, and on the Arts Thread website.

India’s Pearl Academy joined RTP in 2022, followed by Japan’s Bunka Fashion College in 2023. The project scope broadened to include inequality (the Liberty Square tartan), the persecution of writers and artists of conscience (the Havel tartan), and nuclear proliferation (Yamaguchi tartan). Supported by a grant, RTP’s first global exhibition and symposium was held at Nottingham Trent University. And in 2024, for the first time, we began to see students exploring connections between issues (as examples, trafficking, censorship and nuclear proliferation). 

In 2026, marking the project’s tenth anniversary, RTP launched its first international competition. More than 100 students from six institutions participated, including Massey University in New Zealand. Following internal selection by each institution, 23 fashion and textile portfolios were shortlisted for consideration by an international jury. The submissions demonstrated remarkable technical accomplishment, originality, and intellectual ambition, with the strongest students treating sustainability not simply as an environmental concern, but as an interconnected challenge encompassing social justice, cultural identity, human dignity, and systems of power.

Impact

Inspired by Ai Weiwei’s belief that art should live among people and serve freedom of expression, the Rebel Tartan Project encourages students to use fashion and textiles not simply to make objects, but to engage critically with the world around them.

Exploring issues such as climate change, inequality, human trafficking, nuclear proliferation, censorship, and oppression develops social awareness, empathy, and a stronger sense of creative responsibility. Students must consider whose experiences they represent, which assumptions they challenge, and what their work communicates beyond its visual impact.

Translating complex and often interconnected issues into weave, knit, print, and fashion also demands imagination, research, technical experimentation, and critical thinking. Collaboration with students and institutions around the world broadens cultural understanding and helps participants appreciate how global challenges are experienced differently across communities.

Through this process, students become more thoughtful, versatile, and courageous creators. Their work demonstrates that fashion and textiles can preserve memory, question systems of power, stimulate dialogue, and help people imagine different futures. That is the purpose of the Rebel Tartan Project.