Clara Chu brings bags of fun to Laycock Primary School
During their summer term, year 5 children at Laycock Primary School, Islington, have been taking part in the co-design project ‘Bag design for climate change’. Led by fashion and accessories designer Clara Chu, their project commenced with classroom workshops. The children explored everyday items and materials, the energy expended in their production and how long they take to decompose in landfill. They also considered what makes a backpack well-designed and functional, and practiced binding techniques such as weaving and sewing.
“Weaving was fun. Using different materials. We’ve never done anything like this before. It was very different. Usually, we don’t do hands-on projects.”
Year 5 child in focus group, Laycock Primary School
The children were then tasked with designing a backpack that would be suitable for their journey to school for a future climate scenario in the year 2050. In small groups, children worked towards different potential climates as a consequence of climate change: hot and dry, wet and flooded, & cold and snowy.
Using their workshop learning, as well as taking inspiration from Clara’s own work, the children were encouraged to repurpose old and redundant household items to reduce energy consumption and waste production. They brought together pencil sketches, collages and textiles into a 3D mixed-media fashion board detailed with explanations for their material choices and design decisions. The 9- and 10-year-olds then presented their excellent fashion boards to CCAC’s expert panel who were impressed with the children’s innovation in repurposing everyday household items.
A group of children present their multi-media fashion board for their backpack designed for a wet and flooded future climate.
“I feel like it’s [the project] built up a lot of confidence when I’m presenting. Usually when I present to the class or read something out, I felt shy, but now I feel more confidence.”
Year 5 child in focus group, Laycock Primary School.
Combining ideas from all the children’s creative designs, Clara crafted a real-life backpack that was unveiled to the children, parents, teachers and CCAC members at a reveal event in Islington. The final co-design wonderfully re-purposed shower tubing, washing up gloves, old denim, ice cube trays, doorknobs and a coffee cup.
A child tries on the final co-design backpack at the reveal event at Laycock Primary School.
CCAC is immensely proud of this co-design collaboration and are very grateful to the staff at Laycock primary school, Clara and her colleagues for all their hard work in making the project a reality.
“Before, all I knew was there was global warming and the Earth is getting hotter, that’s all I knew. But in this project, I learned how much it’s worth to protect the Earth.”
Year 5 child in focus group, Laycock Primary School.
The CCAC Young Designer’s Award is kindly supported by The Linbury Trust and The Portal Trust. This co-design collaboration with Clara Chu, a recipient of the 2024-25 Award, was generously sponsored by The Linbury Trust.
