Dr Elizabeth Gaston

My individual and collaborative research is organised into three inter-looping areas, each comprising of a series of linked projects located in knit design research.  

Individual Colour Innovation investigates the use of colour and light to disrupt pattern perception, challenging colour use in fashion and interiors and offers sustainable solutions to the impact of textile coloration.

Colour Movements (2013), used theatre lighting and dance, in a collaboration with the Phoenix Dance Theatre, to demonstrate early findings of the research. It generated a new theory Performance Craft (Gaston, 2016). Colonise: Colour (2016), Colonise: Night (Light Night, Leeds,2016), Crafted Futures (Leeds Industrial Museum and The SAB Gallery Leeds, 2016), a strand of the Yorkshire Year of the Textile and Colour Sails (Pannett Art Gallery, Whitby and Salts Mill, Saltaire, 2019) extended this project through large scale knit and light installations that invited public interaction, increasing the complexity of colour gamut extension through lighting, simultaneous contrast and optical mixing produced through knit structure. It included integrated shape generation to reduce production waste.

Collaborative Material Innovation extends the use of knit as a flexible, material system within architecture and is undertaken in a collaborative partnership, Knit: Design: Research (https://www.postdigitalknit.com). Projects use knit as a research tool, utilising the unique inherent properties of knit such as formability and extensibility which can be modified through material use. Knit can be produced in two or three-dimensions and can respond to its environment through tensioning. This work explores practical design solutions and theory generation.

 Inflection (2017) explored the materiality embedded in artefacts in Chinese collection at the Royal Armouries, Leeds and re-imagined them as a complex material system created using advanced knit technology. Working with Cox Architecture, Australia to produce innovative shade solutions for the Opportunity Pavilion, Dubai 2020, Knit: Design: Research produced a bespoke tensioned-knit sun canopy, incorporating subtle colour and textural transformations, innovatively using twice-knitted, natural yarns to reduce overall fabric weight. Post Digital Knit (2019) Considered how the use of technology disrupts traditional making processes, exploring how digital technologies and craft thinking can enable innovation. 

Multi-agency Societal Innovation uses design research to bring change in education policy, social inclusion, well-being and community in partnership with major national or regional organisations.

The research has its roots in the series of 18 practice-led, public workshops delivered as part of Yorkshire Year of the Textile (2016/7). As academic lead for the Yorkshire strand of Make Your Future (2017/9), the Crafts Council’s response to the crisis of creative education in UK schools, I delivered teacher CPD and student craft workshops to 24 schools, based on knit as a thinking tool. As principal investigator, I am currently preparing an AHRC submission with Leeds City Council and Leeds Arts University, investigating craft as a driver for change in primary education. 

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• Colour and Pattern in Knitted Fabrics, Gaston, E. 26 Dec 2024, The Bloomsbury Encyclopeaia of World Textiles, Bloomsbury
• Knit Thinking: Self Supporting Textile Forms, Gaston, E. 21 Nov 2024
• Look Closer, See the Extraordinary: Extraordinary Colour, Gaston, E. 10 Jul 2024
• Modular Knitted Architecture: Column, Gaston, E., Scott, J., Agraviador, A. 1 Nov 2024, 92nd Textile Institute World Conference (TIWC 2023), Red Hook, US, Textile Institute
• Modular Knitted Architecture: Column, Gaston, E., Scott, J., Agraviador, A. 20 Sep 2023
• Physical Thinking: Textile Making Towards Transdisciplinary Design Research, Gaston, E., Scott, J. 31 Jul 2023, The Routledge Companion to Design Research , London, Routledge
• Thinking Through Knitting:: Hand Knit making for rapid architectural prototyping, Gaston, E., Scott, J. 6 Nov 2022, [ ] With Design: Reinventing Design Modes, Singapore, Springer
• Configured Knitting: Grafting as an assembly process for knitted architecture, Gaston, E., Scott, J., Agraviador, A. 8 Sep 2021, Proceedings The 39th Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe: eCAADe 2021 Towards a New, Configurable Architecture, Novi Sad, Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe)
• Zoom Hoods: fashion research in and for a global pandemic, Gaston, E. 24 May 2021, Locking down the Fashion Sector?
• Assemble: The Artifact as a Collaborative Tool in Knit Design Research, Scott, J., Gaston, E. 1 Sep 2020, In: Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• Membership of committee: The Textile Institute (External organisation) 2024
• Other: Chartered Fellowship of The Textile Institute (CText FTI) 2024
• Oral presentation: Fashion as a Filter: using the digital to inspire the physical. 2022
• Invited talk: The Future of Craft Education 2020

• Gayle Cantrell Start Date: 01/10/2025 End Date: 17/10/2025
• Gayle Cantrell Start Date: 01/10/2025
• Erica Singer What is the role of community in post-growth fashion, and how can providing a space for knowledge exchange influence consumer behaviours? Start Date: 01/10/2024
• Erica Singer What is the role of community in post-growth fashion, and how can providing a space for knowledge exchange influence consumer behaviours? Start Date: 01/10/2024 End Date: 17/10/2025

• Textile Design PhD January 25 2016
• Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy SFHEA 2016