Gwen Cunningham

Gwen Cunningham is Lead Textiles Programme at the social enterprise Circle Economy. She has a double First Class Honours degree in Fashion Design and Visual Culture from The National College of Art and Design, Ireland.

A drive to inspire and change the textile industry led her to Circle Economy. She believes that while new methods of design, finishing/production technologies and material innovation are key to accelerating the transition toward a circular textiles industry. A collaborative cross-supply chain approach is needed to fully realise this change- creating and nurturing these synergies is a cornerstone goal of hers, and of the Circular Textiles Program in general.

As Lead of the Textiles Programme at Circle Economy, her main focus is the active development of the market, through close collaboration with key stakeholders within the fashion and textile supply chain. Gwen delves into the various projects the cooperative has been pioneering in with its members and partners. From the optimisation of the Fibersort, a technology that is able to sort post-consumer textiles according to fiber type, to the development of an online material matchmaker, Circle Market.