Strictly embargoed until Tuesday 11th January 2022

Chelsea Flower Show 2022 - A Textile Garden for Fashion Revolution
In May this year, in support of Fashion Revolution, garden designer Lottie Delamain will create thefirst-ever garden at the world-famous Chelsea Flower Show entirely with plants that can be used tomake or dye our clothes. A Textile Garden for Fashion Revolution will be part of the new ‘All About
Plants’ category alongside several other gardens, supported by Project Giving Back.
Throughout history, plants have played a fundamental role in fashion - as dyes, fibres, floral motifs andin botanical folklore, connecting us to a place, a story or a culture. While trekking in Northern Vietnam,
Lottie saw how families grew the plants to make their clothes alongside their vegetables and wasfascinated by the close relationship between what they wore and what was growing in their gardens.
However in our globalised world, this connection is rapidly being lost. A Textile Garden for Fashion
Revolution provides a unique opportunity to showcase creative possibilities and innovative thinking
around how we can use the resources that are literally on our doorsteps to create more sustainable
solutions. It will help to re-establish the connection between plants and textiles, reveal the beauty to
be found in plant-based dyes and fibres, and sow a seed of curiosity about what we wear.
The garden design is intended to imitate a textile, with planting in distinctive blocks of colour to create
the impression of a woven fabric. Plants will be supplied by UK nurseries and growers and will bechosen for their use as fibres or textile dyes in commercial or craft use and the garden will feature atextile installation made entirely from plants by students of Headington School Oxford. Shallowreflective pools represent dye baths, with fabric or fibres soaking in natural dyes, and a series of paved
seams will lead through the planting.
The fashion industry is dominated by synthetic fibres and chemical dyes. Polyester manufacturing is anenergy-intensive process, requiring large amounts of water and producing high levels of greenhousegas emissions, while wastewater emitted from its processing contain volatile substances that can posea threat to human health. Despite this, Fashion Revolution’s Fashion Transparency Index 20211 foundthat only a quarter of major brands publish time-bound, measurable targets on reducing the use oftextiles deriving from virgin fossil fuels. More than 15,000 chemicals can be used during the textile
manufacturing process, from the raw materials through to dyeing and finishing, yet only 30% of brands
disclose their commitment to eliminating the use of hazardous chemicals from our clothes
Co-founder Carry Somers saw the impact our clothing has on the environment first hand two years ago,
when she sailed 2000 miles into the South Pacific Gyre on an all-woman scientific research voyage2 toinvestigate microplastic pollution.3 Although textiles are the largest source of both primary andsecondary microplastics, accounting for 34.8% of global microplastic pollution4, with around 700,000
microfibres being released in every wash cycle,5 just 21% of brands explain what they are doing tominimise the shedding of microfibres.
The philosophy behind the garden is about seeing the potential in the resources we have on ourdoorstep and exploring how we can utilise them in more creative ways. Many of the plants are nativewildflowers, easily propagated and grown in the UK and undemanding in terms of water.
We would like visitors to our garden, as well as those who view the television coverage, to:1Fashion Transparency Index 2021
Exxpedition Round the World
3
Carry Somers blogs on eXXpedition: A trail of plastic waste left in the wake of uncontrolled growth and The
Language of the Sea
4
Boucher and Friot, 2017
5
Napper and Thompson, 2016
2

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Feel inspired by the many plants that can be used to make natural dyes and fibres, somefamiliar and some unusual.
Be encouraged to try dyeing with plants at home, or even create a mini-dye garden.
Think about the plants (or not) that they might be wearing and ask #whatsinmyclothes?

After Chelsea Flower Show, the garden will be relocated to Headington School in Oxford where Kate
Turnbull, Head of Fashion and Textiles Design, has developed a new syllabus which includes the studyof plants used for textiles dyes and fibres, along with their propagation and use. The garden will bereimagined in two parts - as a working dye garden for the Textile Design students, and as a ColourWheel garden, designed to inspire students across the school about the myriad roles plants play in ourlives.
– ENDS –Chelsea Flower Show takes place from 24-28 May 2022, with a press preview day and exclusive Gala
evening on 23 May.
For further information about the garden, to request interviews, or to be added to the RHS databasefor a press pass for Monday 23 May, please contact Carry Somers carry@fashionrevolution.org
Images can be found here. Additional images will be added to this folder as work progresses between
now and the end of May.
Fashion Revolution: www.fashionrevolution.org
Fashion Revolution is the world’s largest fashion activism movement, formed after the Rana Plaza
factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2013 which killed over 1,100 people. Fashion Revolution believes in aglobal fashion industry that conserves and restores the environment and values people above growthand profit. In order to achieve this goal, Fashion Revolution conducts research that shines a light on thefashion industry’s practices and impacts, highlights where brands and retailers are moving too slowly
and incentivises and promotes transparency and accountability across the supply chain.
Lottie Delamain: https://www.lottiedelamain.com/
Lottie started working life in textile design and spent six years living and working in South-East Asia
working in fashion and homewares. Whilst living in cities like Saigon cemented her love of pattern andcolour, the high-density living, pollution and lack of green spaces left her feeling divorced from nature
and with a hunger to apply her design experience in a new context.
On returning to the UK, Lottie retrained in Garden Design at the Inchbald School of Design, graduatingwith Distinction. Since then she has been working on gardens around the UK, from small urban spaces
to historic estates. Lottie’s background in textiles informs all her work – pattern, form, texture, colour
are all central to her design thinking.
Lottie is a Pre-Registered Member of the Society of Garden Designers, and has been featured in House& Garden, The Sunday Times and The Telegraph. She also writes a column for House & Garden, called A
Life In Plants about the many roles plants play in the lives of contemporary British creatives. This is her
first show garden.
Project Giving Back https://www.givingback.org.uk/
Project Giving Back (PGB) is a unique grant-making scheme that provides funding for gardens for goodcauses at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. PGB was launched in May 2021 in response to the Covid-19
pandemic and its effect on UK charitable fundraising. It will fund gardens inspired by a range of goodcauses at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2022, 2023 and 2024. PGB will fund eight Show Gardens at

RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2022 and four smaller gardens in a new category, All About Plants. In total,
PGB plans to fund 42 gardens at the show from 2022 - 2024.