Phase One Exhibition

On Friday 31st January 2025, we opened our doors for our major end of phase one exhibition, showcasing prototype garments made by young people on our project, and selling a variety of clothes for the first time. Here, you can read about some of the individual pieces, and the process we went through during this phase of Needs Not Labels.

Exhibition Entrance & Sensory Lighting

Having a sensory friendly space was important to our project, partly for accessibility, and partly because our project's ethos focused on empowerment through meeting sensory needs. We used soft lighting throughout the exhibition space, and a variety of soft LED spots (pictured, bottom right) to provide the atmosphere we wanted. In addition to lighting, we played soft instrumental music and provided a station of fidget toys that people could use, some of which we 3D printed ourselves (pictured, bottom left).

Reversable Cape With Ears

One of the stand-out pieces at our exhibition, this regal blue and white cape was designed by one of our project participants (pictured, top left). In addition to being a beautifully designed cape and hat with ears, the piece is fully reversable, and can be worn as a white cape with blue lining (pictured, bottom left).

Wearable Ribcage

As the description next to this piece reads, this piece was designed to be worn over a shirt. The participant who designed it was interested in finding a solution to making clothing more fashionable in hot weather when they wear tshirts, designing a garment that wouldn't make them too hot, and that can easily be worn over a tshirt.

Ventilating Top

This is, in some ways, a reverse method of piece 03. Again echoing the theme of a ribcage, the holes in this top allow for ventilation in hot weather, making temperature regulation easier for people with sensory needs that include temperature. This can be worn on it's own or paired with other clothing.

Ribbon Hoodie & Carry Bag

This phenomenal ribbon hoodie has been designed to have a number of aesthetic ribbons running throughout it to give wearers something to play with. Lots of neurodivergent people use fabrics such as ribbon to stim.

Stimming (short for self-stimulatory behaviour) refers to repetitive movements, sounds, or activities that a person engages in to self-regulate emotions, manage sensory input, or express themselves. It is commonly associated with autism but can be seen in people with ADHD, anxiety, or even neurotypical people.

Screen Printing & Embroidery

There were many other pieces in our exhibition, and we invite you to explore our site to see other aspects, such as the resources page, and the What is NNL page.

A lot of our work involved screen printing and/or embroidery, and here we have a tshirt screen printed with the N>L logo, and an assortment of clothes embroidered underneath. All of this work was done in-house on our own equipment (which you can find out more of on our Resources page.

Thoughts & Reflections

At the exit of our exhibition we encouraged people to leave a comment on a white board to express how they felt about the exhibition or give us feedback. Here are some of our favourite comments. Thank you to everyone that came, and especially to The National Lottery Community Fund for making it all possible.

Sketches

All great ideas start with a sketch, and we included some of the initial sketches our participants made, alongside some fabric scraps and test designs, to show the full creative process.