Designer Bio

Katherine Soucie is an award-winning sustainable textile and fashion designer specializing in the transformation of textile industry waste. She studied Fashion Design in London and Toronto before completing further studies in Textiles and Visual Art in Vancouver.

Introduced to the world of textiles and fashion as a child, Soucie created inventive outfits from hand-me-down clothing and vintage fabrics. As the youngest of five children from a mixed cultural heritage (British, French Canadian, German, and First Nations), she discovered early on that textiles and clothing offered a means to express her voice and cultural identity.

Her activism and commitment to recycling began in childhood through a waste-collection initiative in a provincial park. However, it was in the 1990s, while studying fashion, that visiting large-scale landfills in Canada and the U.S. profoundly influenced her creative direction. This experience led her to deepen her textile studies in Vancouver and focus her design practice on sustainable solutions.

In 2002, Soucie founded Sans Soucie Textile + Design, a zero-waste upcycling studio and clothing label. Translated from French as “without a care” or “worry-free,” Sans Soucie came to define the studio’s philosophy—challenging us to reimagine what’s in our materials and how we wear them. During her textile studies at Capilano University, she developed an innovative process for upcycling waste hosiery, now a signature of her practice.

Over the years, Soucie’s experimentation with industrial textile waste has generated an extensive body of work that integrates handcraft, industrial methods, and digital technology. Her aim is to revive regional craft practices by working with existing materials—encouraging a sustainable, regenerative approach through the act of upcycling.

Soucie’s textiles, garments, accessories, sculptures, and installations have been exhibited widely across Canada, the U.S., Japan, China, Australia, and the U.K. Her numerous honours include the BC Creative Achievement Award (2006, Canada), the International Design Green Award (2008, U.S.), and the Luxlife Magazine Award for Best Artisanal Sustainable Textile Studio – Canada (2019), among others. Most recently, she received the R3 Award (2025, U.K.) for Outstanding Commitment to the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” campaign.

Beyond her studio practice, Soucie has served as Visiting Artist and Lecturer in Textiles at the Welch School of Art and Design, Georgia State University (2013–2014); Program Director for Fashion at LaSalle College Vancouver (2016–2019); and MA Lecturer in Textiles and Sustainability at the University for the Creative Arts, U.K. (2022–2024). She recently completed her PhD at Kingston University London and currently contributes to Sustainable Fashion short courses at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.

“I am a designer who transforms waste, utilizes obsolete clothing and textile machinery and incorporates traditional artisanal techniques to produce a uniquely Canadian cultural product that not only represents my story, but that of where we live and the society we live in.”

 Katherine Soucie

https://www.katherinesoucie.com