Spotlight on: Megan Leech

Company Profile: Megan Leech - Contemporary Woven Textile Design

Starting our new occasional series spotlighting our members, I'm very pleased to start with Megan who is a rare and talented individual combining both artistic and technical abilities.

Blending contemporary design thinking with strong technical expertise, Megan Leech (www.meganleech.com) represents a new generation of textile practitioners who bridge the gap between artistic exploration and industrial innovation. Her work continues to celebrate the potential of woven textiles, contributing fresh perspectives to both the craft and the wider industry.

Megan leads a London-based textile design and weave studio whose work stretches the boundaries of woven textiles artistically and technically.  Working at the intersection of craft, research and innovation, each collection is a technical investigation into woven construction, creating bespoke woven fabrics defined by delicate pattern, gestural form and a confident, contemporary use of colour.

Megan's work is at the forefront of combining aesthetic and technical properties (Courtesy Megan Leech)

Her work is driven by curiosity. She draws inspiration from her surroundings, collating imagery and exploring how scale, expressive mark making, and movement can be captured within woven form. It could be reimagining historical textiles through a contemporary lens or interpreting abstract philosophy into the pixel language of weave. The result is a continuous dialogue between creative ideation and technical execution.

Courtesy Megan Leech

 Alongside her studio practice, Megan collaborates with technical textile companies on the development of new yarn technologies. Through yarn-to-weave prototyping and detailed reporting on feasibility, processability, and scale-up potential, she remains at the forefront of material innovation.

Her dual perspective ensures every project is grounded in manufacturing reality while maintaining the exploratory, expressive qualities of handcraft.

Upcoming Exhibitions & Shows

Heimtextil 2026 — Frankfurt, Germany

13–16 January 2026

Megan Leech will launch her latest design collection at Heimtextil 2026, one of the world’s leading international trade fairs for home and contract textiles. She has been selected for the New Talent area, curated by Trendease International, which highlights emerging designers to a global audience of manufacturers, specifiers and buyers.

Surface Design Show 2026 — London, UK

3–5 February 2026

Following Heimtextil, Megan’s work will be exhibited at the Surface Design Show 2026 in London. The show brings together innovative material designers and manufacturers and provides a platform for new surface-led approaches across interiors, architecture and design.

Education and Experience

Megan began weaving while studying textiles at Falmouth University in 2016 and quickly became absorbed in the technical possibilities of the craft. Specialising in the jacquard power loom, she explored how colour and structure could be manipulated to create expressive patterns and forms.

Her studies continued at the Royal College of Art in 2019, where she embraced a more conceptual design practice and refined her methodology through handweaving. This period became foundational in merging her interests in theory, research, and artistic expression.

After graduating, Megan joined Heathcoat Fabrics in Devon as a Development Engineer. Immersed in the advancement of woven textiles, she worked on an extensive range of projects from yarn developments, to woven construction and finishing. This experience expanded her technical understanding of fabric construction and industry-led innovation.

In 2024, Megan was awarded the Clothworkers’ Company Award, enabling her to relocate to London and establish her own studio at Cockpit Arts. Today, her practice blends artisan weaving with the extensive technical knowledge gained from industrial manufacturing, creating work that is both expressive and functional.