Larsen Textile Award (September 21-22)

LARSEN TEXTILE AWARD: Honoring Lidewidij Edelkoort

Talks and Book Signing Celebrating New York Textile Month

We are honored to present visionary Li Edelkoort with the inaugural Larsen Textile Award in recognition of her contributions to the global design community, including establishing New York Textile Month and founding the World Hope Forum. As part of this special weekend, Li will be presenting several talks including Re-Rug, Proud South, Talking Textiles and signing copies of her book.

Lidewij Edelkoort is a trend forecaster, publisher, humanitarian, design educator and exhibition curator. From 2015-2020 she was the Dean of Hybrid Design Studies at Parsons in New York where she founded a Textile Masters and the New York Textile Month festival. Her thought-provoking writings and podcasts have become increasingly popular at a time when she is regarded as an activist and champion for change. In 2020, she founded the World Hope Forum as a platform to inspire the creative community to rebuild a better society. She is also on the Creative Council for all of Gap Inc.’s fashion brands, advising the group on creative innovation and sustainable practice. In 2022, Edelkoort collaborated with Polimoda in Florence to establish an innovative new textile masters called Farm to Fabric to Fashion. Her latest publication, PROUD SOUTH, celebrates the creative forces from the southern parts of the planet.

Saturday, September 21: Talks and Book Signing | 2:00-5:00pm

Re-Rug: 2025 Rugs & Interiors Guests and design enthusiasts are invited to hear about the RE-RUG revolution taking interiors by storm, livening up even tiny spaces with the most daring of artistic expressions. This visually inspiring presentation bears witness to the whirlwind of textiles, yarns and colours emerging for flooring - a school of art for art’s sake. The renowned design forecaster Li Edelkoort has researched numerous ideas to curate a selection of stunning examples for the future. In contrast to our troubled era, rugs are back in art and design as an aesthetic antidote. If the rug can be considered a key reflection of culture, it is conveying with a sense of urgency the need to come together and rejoice in what is human and convivial, that which brings us together and ignites empathy. The rug as manifest!

Proud South: Fashion, Art & Photography from the Global South A mesmerizing visual experience that celebrates the creative forces from the southern parts of the planet. Through the colorful and expressive lens of contemporary fashion, photography, styling and art, Li Edelkoort will present emerging and established talents from wide and far, illustrating that the axis of global creativity has indeed dramatically shifted. Edelkoort has investigated multiple themes that connect sensational talents that hail from Latin America, Africa, South Asia and South East Asia. Not defined by maps, hemispheres or the rigid fashion system of the north, PROUD SOUTH represents an emancipated international movement. Style, materials, motifs and colours are therefore innovated in myriad ways. Yet the power of the south also leads by example, teaching the important lessons of de-colonialization, inclusivity, ecology, spiritual harmony and grace.

Sunday, September 22: Award and Talk | 3:00pm

Inaugural Larsen Textile Award, Keyonte Presentation and Book Signing

Inaugural Larsen Textile Award

We are honored to present Li Edelkoort with the inaugural Larsen Textile Award in recognition of her contributions to the global design community, including establishing New York Textile Month and founding the World Hope Forum. 

Talking Textiles: Creativity & Awareness We are currently experiencing a return to textiles and their cultural expressions in art, fashion, design and interiors; now, more than ever, it’s time to talk textiles. Li Edelkoort will take the audience on an inspiring visual journey looking at how fashion starts to focus on fabric, how interiors brings back upholstery and how students reach out to the loom. There is a renewed interest in material processes and a desire to understand what products are made of. Companies and graduates alike are reintroducing arts and crafts and the recycling of scraps to not let anything go to waste. Others focus on quilting, prints, upholstery, tufting, haute couture, 3D printing and technology, industrial production, natural dyeing, anthropology, archeology, activism and much, much more.TALKING TEXTILES is also an initiative established by Edelkoort in 2011 to promote the survival of textile creativity and knowledge. Over the years, Edelkoort and her business partner Philip Fimmano have dedicated their energy to exhibitions, educational programs, conferences, a trend magazine and starting the Dorothy Waxman International Textile Design Prize. This presentation therefore celebrates these efforts and the first decade of New York Textile Month, a non-profit organization that brings together hundreds of talents from the New York area and beyond every September.

Ticket Information:

Purchase tickets to the full program on Saturday and Sunday for $120. Saturday talks and book signing $100. Sunday award and talk $35. If you are a design studio or organization and would like to purchase a 10% discounted block of tickets please contact LongHouse at 631-329-3568 or info@longhouse.org