CCAC Young Designer Award winner, Clara Chu, joins Climate Change All Change

We are delighted that accessories designer Clara Chu has been selected for CCAC’s Young Designer award.

Clara specializes in accessories with a focus on handbag design. Her namesake practice, Clara Chu Ltd, focuses on reimagining everyday objects to create unique, characterful bags made from materials that otherwise would have been thrown away.

Clara grew up in both Hong Kong and Toronto before moving to London to do an art foundation course at Camberwell College of Arts, where she first dabbled in fashion through collage and portable sculpture – persuading her friends to wear yoga mats!  She graduated with a BA from the London College of Fashion. Realizing her heart was not really set on making clothes, her graduate collection included bags that were detachable from her garments, influencing her choice to then study accessories at the Royal College of Art.

It was at the RCA that Clara’s designs for bags made of waste packaging first took shape: her MA thesis focused on reimagining food transportation, particularly the plastic containers and Tupperware we’re all used to.

“At the start I was navigating with a scientific approach,” says Clara. “I wanted to change the shape of the Tupperware from the mundane into something more exciting. It came to a point where I thought why not just reuse these objects”.

A recent BBC article reports that nearly half of UK household waste, including rising amounts of plastics, is now incinerated. Waste incineration generates greenhouse gases at a rate comparable to coal, which the UK phased out two months ago with the closure of its last coal-fired power station.

For Clara Chu and her company Clara Chu Ltd, this year marks a pivotal moment in addressing these crucial issues. She is currently exploring and advancing her practice even further towards reusing materials that would otherwise be discarded.

“We are questioning the whole brand’s ethos around why we do what we do”, says Clara. “Questioning where we get our materials from and being transparent about what goes into the things we make.”

Although Clara engaged children with her work when she was Designer in Residence at the Young V&A in 2024 – working with CCAC is her first experience of working in a school environment.

“I’m excited to learn how to manage a crowd of 30 nine and ten-year-olds. How do I communicate so they stay focused? How do I deliver the session in general? How do you engage them in a way that is fun for them and for me as well?”

Clara will be in a London school in 2025 where she will be co-designing a survival backpack for extreme climates. During the six-week project, the children will explore the lifecycle of products, learning to repurpose discarded materials while fostering awareness and appreciation for their environmental impact.

Photo credit for studio shots – Jasprit Singh

The CCAC Young Designer Award is kindly supported by The Linbury Trust.