Conceptualization

Today is the day we presented THE dress to our course leader. It’s about time you get to know it to. I will tell you its name but not right away. A good writer knows how to distill information skillfully for the sake of suspense. And to those of you who are too curious, I will only say that you will miss the best bits.

Let me walk you through our concept first. You may have notice in a previous post, we are lucky enough to have Dr. Kate Fletcher as a lecturer. She recently presented us a new set of ideas, quite revolutionary in the way we perceive fashion if you ask me. She questioned the concept of consumer and user when it comes to garment. She ruled in favour of the second and I couldn’t do anything but agree with her. We often read that 80% of a product’s impact is decided during the design phase. Yet when it comes to clothing, most of the ecological impact is due to the laundring aka the use. (By the way, if you are interested in those questions, check this out) In addition to that, we rarely buy a piece of clothing for a one time use like, say, food. We use our garments more than we consume them. Following this principle, another necessity unfolds: designing with the use in mind. Kate Fletcher and Mathilda Tam formalized it in their project LIFETIMES through the idea of clothing rhythms.

If we were to design according to this rule, then our dress would be a one time, eco-friendly disposable piece. Yet we wanted to make a change in the fashion industry. We used THE dress to “redesign” the relationship between designers and celebrities. We wanted to create a durable relationship between them, bringing them together in a garment and put an end to that bilboard status of public figures on the red-carpet.

This is why we created “THE DRESS THAT REMEMBERS”. Using a natural dyed silk base dress that can be worn on more than one occasion, we decided to add up a set of fully disposable or recycled “superstructures” to bring theatricality, glamour and drama under the spotlights. This way, you have a new eco-friendly dress for every occasion. In addition to that, THE dress retains the memory of an exceptional night for you through the seam lines left when the superstructure is removed. It’s a bit like Andy Warhol stopping from wearing a perfume after a special event and keeping it as a memory trigger. For us, it is an invitation for the user of the dress to go back to the designer for to dye the base dress in a different colour if the former faded away, get a new superstructure… or even ask an other designer to challenge their aesthetic through sustainable practices.

Anyway, this video will tell you much better about it than I did:

The Revolution Question

Challenging a well established industry like fashion is not an easy one. The obvious question is: what does it look like?

I have mentioned the “bad eco-design” problem in previous post (the offer still hold. If you have pics’ of the don’ts of eco-fashion, fire away) and we surely would like to avoid creating a garment where sustainability makes us forget all of our aesthetic agenda. We discussed the matter with our tutor, Dr. Kate Fletcher, and she told us about one very encouraging piece of work from Stuart Walker.

“The systems of production we are currently using to manufacture products are, in many respects, antithetical to the goals, principles and general ethos of sustainability. Therefore the ‘derived’ aesthetic, determined by these production systems, inevitably embodies and reflects these ‘counter-sustainable’ practices. In contrast, a product manufactured within a system which adheres to sustainable principles would lead to sustainable principles would lead to a ‘derived’ component which is qualitatively different; that is: a ‘sustainable aesthetic’.

A product may initially produce a positive aesthetic experience – outwardly it may be judged both beautiful and tasteful. However, knowledge of the environmental degradation, social inequity and exploitation which may have gone into the production of the product may well change this experience. We may see the object in a new light – the object stays the same but now our knowledge alters our experience of it.

Designers may be hesitant to acknowledge it, but the aesthetics of a product are, to a very great extent, a result of the system which produced it. The definition of form, detailing of shape and surface are both constrained and largely determined by the overall product system. Therefore, we should not be attempting to find a new style which we might characterise as some form of ‘sustainable aesthetic’. Rather we should be developing products and restructuring our manufacturing systems so they are conceptually and pragmatically aligned with sustainable principles. As we do so, new types of products will emerge whose aesthetics go deeper than shape and surface and which start to embody ethics and to reflect these new sensitivities and understandings.”

Walker (1997), Conscientious Objects in E. van Hinte (ed.) Eternally Yours: visions on product endurance, Rotterdam: 010 publishers

The short version (for those of you who recognized the quotation style and are experienced skim readers) is that once sustainable practices will be settled in fashion, a new aesthetic will rise. In a way, our project to wow fashion by showing you can create traditional glamour with sustainable and biodegradable materials and techniques may not be very bold in a matter of aesthetic. It is because the revolution we planned for the industry is set on another level and I will tell you all about it in a future post so keep looking!

Ignition

In the beginning… there was me getting a fringe and my amazing Anna Wintour-ish new look inspired everybody in a flash.

Anyway, let’s be honest in the beginning, there was lots of ideas coming from every direction. Yet if you want to create, you need a frame. Otherwise, we would end up designing the next Royal Wedding gown (if Prince Harry would be nice enough to get engaged any time soon).

We are five girls in the fashion industry so our first desire was to promote the women’s cause. We wanted to design a universal accessory to be worn on International Women’s Day. The brainstorm started and the wind of inspiration hurled us to a place where we were reduced to design a charm black scarf. The main issue was actually communication and made us realize that when it comes to fashion, it’s all about one thing:

Celebrities in the magazines

So we decided to take on a bigger challenge. We were to prove that eco-fashion was not afraid of theatricality and glamour. It would be in the press, on a stage, on a red carpet… It would be THE dress.