This October, GREEN GRADS, the platform championing the UK’s brightest young designers with ideas to heal the planet, joins the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair (16–19 October) at Manchester’s iconic Victoria Baths.
Over 25 graduates will unveil cutting-edge projects spanning biomaterials, natural dyes, waste transformation, and biophilia. Discover new craft expertly created from straw, Peak District clay, waste wool, and discarded textiles — alongside robust biomaterials made from coffee grounds, eggshells, algae, and more. Look out, too, for Leah Gasson’s compostable wedding dress and Amelia Wylam’s grass-knitted handbags, both embedded with seeds for earth renewal.
GREEN GRADS was founded in 2021 by the show’s curator, Barbara Chandler. The intake for 2025 showcases this autumn is the fifth cohort, which adds around 50 new GREEN GRADS to the 200 already listed on the website. Alumni have been ‘eco scouts’ at summer graduate shows to uncover the most exciting new talent. “Our vision is to fuel UK environmental action with new talent from UK universities,” says Chandler.
The autumn shows are hosted/sponsored by Great Northern Events in Manchester and Pearson Lloyd in London, GREEN GRADS is committed to creating opportunities for emerging creatives while sparking dialogue around the climate emergency.
