Hannah Auerbach George

Past Futures: Material Innovation in the Archive

I am an LAHP-funded CDA PhD student based in the Material Science Research Centre at the Royal College of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Originally trained in woven textile design, I pair my contemporary knowledge of the textile industry and skills as a maker with a strong research interest in historical technologies and their application to current discourses on sustainability. I am a lecturer in Textile Design at the University of the Arts London, Norwich University of the Arts and Winchester School of Art.

My supervisors are Prof Sharon Baurley, RCA, Dr Mirium Ribul, RCA, Connie Karol Burks, V&A, and Dr Spike Sweeting, V&A.

Selected publications

Auerbach George, H. (2024) Waste and Wasted Opportunity: Utilizing Archive Collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum to Inform Contemporary Sustainability. Fashioning Sustainment, special issue of Fashion Studies, 3(1), 1-29.

Auerbach George, H., Tregenza, L., Stenton, M., Kapsali, V., Blackburn, R. S., Houghton, J. A. (2023) ‘Challenging perceptions of fast and slow in contemporary fashion: A review of the paper dresses trend in the United Kingdom and the United States during the 1960s’. International Journal of Sustainable Fashion & Textiles, 2 (1), pp. 29-52.

Auerbach George, H., Stenton, M., Kapsali, V., Blackburn, R. S., Houghton, J. A. (2022) ‘Referencing Historical Practices and Emergent Technologies in the Future Development of Sustainable Textiles: A Case Study Exploring “Ardil”, a UK-Based Regenerated Protein Fibre’. Sustainability, 14 (14).

Auerbach George, H. (2022) ‘Peanuts in the archive: Imperial Chemical Industries, Tibor Reich and the British Industries Fair’. V&A blog.