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!

Colorization

Let’s do a bit of live reporting here! Yes indeed, live from my own kitchen.

Who says natural dyes can’t give you rich bright colours? (Sounds like a hair dye advertising, doesn’t it?)

So we got our hands dirty  last Wednesday afternoon, got the pots and pans out. Using ingredients we collected for the last few weeks (onion skins, tea bags, coffee ground…) as well as some we ordered on the internet (madder and elderberries), we discovered the wonderful world of pigments. If you look at the colours we obtained, you’ll see that nothing is really as it seems when it comes to dyeing. From the greens of onions skins to the blue and purples of red cabbage, the real surprise came from the beautiful Terracotta we got from tea and the rich gold-like effect from coffee.

Of course, the results depend on many variables. First is the textile you are using. We worked mainly on silk and cotton and confirmed our original preference for the former. The second is the quantities of dye stuff we used. If for some of them, we went by the book, I must confess that we also played the sorcerer’s apprentice on certain experiments (the tea miracle might as well be largely due to living in a house of 7 heavy tea drinkers).

The process is pretty easy in the end and very much like cooking. You first need to prepare your mordanting bath. This will allow the pigments to penetrate and stay in the fibre. In some cases, you don’t actually need one. The mordant is usually made of metallic salts and can be disposed of to water your plants and garden. In the mean time, prepare your dye bath by plunging your ingredients in simmering water. You can scoop it out before putting the fibre in or not. Leave it to cook for a little while. When it’s ready, just rinse it and put it to dry. Yes, it’s that simple. The only real problem is the space, the pots and the scales. But if we managed, you probably can! Just follow the recipe.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Germination

Considering the time I am posting at today, I’d say me telling you all about our project is a bit of a bed-time story…

So where was I?

Yes, it was about creating THE dress. How were we to accomplish such a miracle? First of all, we had to swear an oath: forsaking the traditional “eco-fashion” look (aka bad eco-design, if you get what I mean, just post a pic in your comment). THE dress is shiny, glamorous and theatrical. You want “Fab”? Sustainable fashion can do that for you. All it takes is our second decision: combine our fashion super-powers.

On my side, my super power is quite lame from a making perspective. It’s more or less a genuine enthusiasm. My part of the business is building the concept. But my playground buddies, they know a good deal about making a garment and they all have their own field of interest.

You already read more than once about Kiki’s love of non-fabric materials and biodegradability. Ani is miss “Zero-Waste”. She looks into origami, kirigami and all the techniques that can create beautiful without using loads of fabric. Betty is fond of creative printing: ink work, natural dyes, digital printing… Name it, she likes it! As for Emma, she is all about aura and drawing you what she means.

Here we were, with all those elements to bring into our design. We could as well create chimera, a composite thing without harmony. So we needed an idea, a super villain to defeat with our garment.

Have you ever heard about those ‘scandals’, those poor celebrities who dare wear the same dress twice? Or even worse, a dress that somebody already wore… We were to come to their rescue. Our garment would be splendid, but just for one time and then go back to the environment without any sort of harm. Our tools: paper, bio-plastic, natural dyes and biodegradable fabrics.

But it is way past bed-time and I don’t want to ruin your beauty sleep. So until next time…

Alter-materialization

Forget shiny plastic sequins and say hello to edible bio-plastic!

Well, when I say edible, Kiki tried it when she was experimenting and said it did not taste that great. Nonetheless, in case of emergency… Who knows!

The diversity of materials used in fashion is pretty amazing and the creativity of designers is no limit to what can be used in a garment. The materials library from the Institute of making is a very inspiring collection for innovative mind. Sustainability is also thinking of the materials you use, their impact and work on new solutions to help you materialize what you imagined.

I guess that’s what Kiki had in mind when she first started researching Bio-plastic. It’s easy to make your own at home (just like this) with potatoes or even tapioca. To leave Kansas and land in colourful Oz, simply add food colourants. Yes, it’s that simple. The tricky bit is that you need a week for the plastic sheet to dry and it shrinks, breaks… So, not ideal for monumental pieces. But if you stitch back the crumbs together, you will catch the light with your home-baked sequins!

See for yourself!

Emulation

Nowadays, we live in a world of sharing (sometimes, it’s a bit too much if you ask me). Nevertheless, you usually don’t want to talk too much of what you are doing because somebody might still your idea. Sometimes, you don’t whisper a word and you find out that somebody just got the same idea. I personally don’t think it’s a bad thing. To me, it just proves that your idea makes sense and that you’re heading in the right direction.

This is why I am very happy to share this with you. To me, this project represents a move forward and people really starting to embed sustainability in their practice.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2012/mar/28/young-vic-low-carbon-footprint-play

That is the amazing thing in sustainability. I believe the metaphor is very appropriate considering our line of work. Sustainability is like origami. You have a set piece of paper but you can fold it in any shape you like. You can experiment on your own or learn about it.

You can approach the same problem from different angles and find multitude of solutions. People usually see sustainability as limitation. I see it as emulation and a wide open field for imagination.

Hello world!

It’s the title they gave to the template and I found it summed up pretty well this post. After all, it’s always better than ‘Lorem Ipsum dolor’, isn’t it?

So Hello world! We are five students from the MA Fashion and the Environment at London College of Fashion and this blog is us telling you about our work.

We have been asked to approach the impregnable fortress of fashion from a sustainable point of view. Our angle is to rethink the concept of garments which are worn on very few but widely advertised occasions (red carpet, stage, editorial shoots…) and offer a new take on how fashion is publicised.

This reflection will guide us to explore a new aesthetic and create a garment that will show our concerns for sustainability, beauty and wonder.