Cornelia Weinmann Design is about upcycling. After an academic career, owner Cornelia Weinmann moved from her home town of Munich, Germany, to Canada and – inspired by the country’s endeavours to reduce the amount of reusable stuff that goes to landfill – started a home based business for functional art, painting colourful designs on vintage furniture. Other products from her studio were handpainted and printed textiles. Later, in the Republic of Ireland and in Wales she moved towards fine arts and painting and printmaking, never quite losing sight of upcycling furniture.
Soon after taking up residence in Scotland, Cornelia delivered a series of workshops in furniture painting for Zero Waste Highland Perthshire, teaching her students to turn ugly, unwanted furniture into vibrant focal points. These popular sessions resulted in a nomination as Perth Pioneer when Perth competed to become UK City of Culture 2021.
During Fashion Revolution week in 2019 V&A Dundee hosted a public talk and Cornelia heard about the fashion industries’ detrimental impact on the environment and learned about the incredible amount of textiles that are cheaply produced and bought every year, and of the pitiful percentage of used clothing that gets recycled. These messages made her decide to re-engage with her love of fabrics and of sewing and evolve her business towards working with repurposed fabrics as a personal contribution for a circular economy and against our throw-away society: Cornelia creates fabric collages to be appliquéd on her studio-made linen garments, and she uses second hand fabric also for lining, facing and binding. Her practice follows the growing movement of Slow Fashion, the production of quality garments that last a long time, made in an eco-friendly and sustainable way.
Cornelia’s line of handmade jackets and tops is available in her Kettins studio and from mid 2020 in her online store.
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https://www.corneliaweinmanndesign.com/