The Cutting Circle: How Making Challenges Design

2013

This thesis examines zero-waste fashion design: design activity that results in zero-waste garments. Conventional design approaches waste approximately 15 per cent of the fabric used in the design and make of a cut and sew garment. The responsibility for this wastage belongs with manufacture, which is constrained by what has already been designed and pattern cut. The economic systems that underpin fashion design and manufacture are such that there is little economic incentive to be concerned with this wastage. An examination of the material and social investments embodied in fabrics alongside their environmental impacts, reveals that these investments are wasted in the wasted fabric. The context of this study is contemporary fashion design within the ready-to-wear industry: fashion design that leads to the manufacturing of multiples of one design. The contextual review of this study examines different methods of fashion creation. Design ideation tools and the relationship between fa...

2013

Sustainability is one of the key challenges facing the fashion industry due to the complexity of the environmental and social issues associated with whole product life cycle, complex supply chain systems, as well as human consumption and consumer behaviour. Although awareness of the issue has grown significantly in the last decade, the question of how to integrate the concept of sustainability into design practice still remains. It has been argued that complex design problems and the transition towards sustainable design require radical social innovation, enabling a system that engages with diverse social actors facilitating discussion as a process of social learning. This concept of co-design represents a new paradigm for fashion and textile design, involving participatory activity and consumption encouraging action towards social change. However, the adoption of co-design for sustainable fashion is still in its early stages and there has been limited study into a systemic level of...

Proceedings of DRS

This paper presents a new analysis of practice research work exploring Textile Design for Disassembly as a design for recyclability strategy. It suggests a response to challenges relating to blends in the context of a circular textile economy. This paper highlights the potential for qualitative and creative textile design methods to produce research insights. Three textile design methods: the mood board, textile sampling, and garment prototyping, are reviewed in terms of their contribution to research. The methods are used to frame the problem space, develop a range of solutions, and test these in concepts that can materialise future fashion systems. The textile design methods are combined with information visualisation to produce insights. The approach thus makes visible some inherently tacit knowledge embedded in the textile design process. This supports a better understanding of the mechanisms for change towards sustainability at the core of design practices.

2011

The relationship between craft and design has been the subject of much discourse. Press and Cushworth (1997) have suggested that craft knowledge is fundamental to developing a vision of design in a "post-industrial future", and McCullough (1998, cited in Kettley, 2005: 2) supported this, noting "there remains a realm where scientific production cannot go, where mechanized industry finds too little demand to go, and where artistic discourses dare not go…there we find craft". Contradictory to existing industrial-scale design processes, craft values social engagement and knowledgesharing, is reflective and produces authentic products imbued with cultural meaning. It is these characteristics which suggest that craft has a significant role to play in developing sustainable practices. This paper explores the role of craft in supporting sustainable fashion design, production and consumption. In recent years a number of DIY craft and fashion micro-productions have emerged throughout the fashion and textile industries through the fusion of the design and making process. Fletcher (2008) has proposed that more participatory models of fashion design, "User Maker" systems in which consumers become co-partners in the process, may encourage more sustainable consumption. However, the adoption of co-design for sustainable fashion is in its early stages; the evolution in design research from a usercantered approach to co-design is changing the role of the designer and the implication of this shift for the education of designers and researchers are enormous (Sanders & Stappers, 2008).

Journal of Arts & Communities, 2020

The article presents a participatory research model based on two case studies, involving the making of the research and the making of the clothing. In recent years, there has been growing interest in participatory design research, especially in relation to textiles and clothing. Various practice-based initiatives focused around the role, value and use of clothing have demonstrated success in developing and applying research methodologies aimed at activating or recording creative outcomes while staying attuned to participants’ experiential knowledge and feedback. Researchers working across social and design innovation contexts point to the urgent need for new cultures of sustainable practice that challenge the growth model through the sharing of expert and amateur knowledge and skills. Consequently, an important opportunity now exists to more formally explicate a transferable model of principles for participatory engagement through making together. Based on a critical analysis of two...

2021

The paper investigates the possibility to re-imagine fashion design in a sustainable direction and to conceive alternatives to the current unsustainable growth of which fashion has been a carrier in recent decades. The paper relies on the emerging design-theory-based concept of “futuring”, which concerns ecology, sustainability, and social innovation. It sets a methodological framework that develops eco-fashion beyond environmental sustainability, and slow fashion beyond the critique of the acceleration of fashion production and consumption. The proposed framework leads into the four directives of Do it Yourself; Future Artisans; Digital Manufacturing; and Industrial Experimentation and allows to encompass initiatives ranging from circular economies to participatory design models and open design. Future research on Italian case studies will test the validity of this framework. The research hypothesis is that there is an Italian design laboratory in fashion, able to prefigure new mat...

TEXTEH Proceedings, 2021

Today, sustainability is an imperative for industry, in all its sectors. The common focus is on achieving development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the future of the Planet and its People. In the field of fashion and textiles, this momentum toward sustainability translates also into an embryonic process of transformation of the material dimension. This positive transformation is characterized by the choice of new textile solutions supported by growing investments, radical experimentation, and a strong commitment to sustainability. Within this framework, there is a growing interest in bio-based materials, not only from material engineering experts, but also from designers who are starting to explore the possibilities offered by these materials through experiments more focused on design and aesthetics. According to the presented scenario, the proposed article investigates how to strategically implement the systematization of experiments in order to promote t...

The art of Knowing how to do - Fashion, Art and sustainability. Research of craft techniques (Atena Editora), 2022

This article aims to share the research and projects undertaken by Ateliê Escola Quidesign, a center for studies and research related to the universe of fashion and sustainable solutions for the textile industry, contributing to the inclusion of fashion issues in culture.Over the past four years of research and several projects and actions, REDESIGN already appears as a powerful option to offer creative possibilities and reduce solid waste in the textile chain, generating new products and enhancing the value of raw materials. The first projects were directed to give a new life to the companies' stock leftovers, scraps and pieces not accepted by the market, and leftovers from cutting that would be transformed into waste. In the last months, with the event of the pandemic caused by COVID 19, this option also stands out in consulting requests, after all, staying at home suggests a new look for the closet. We highlight some projects and products to illustrate this moment of reflection with an authorial production using the leftovers from the studio.

2015

2019

The change of models required to implement circular design brings real problems closer to the field of design education. The complexity of today’s world [8] favours the integration of systems, here a collaboration between the non-governmental organisation and university. Our understanding of sustainability requires understanding how affects everything in our lifestyle, governing and social corporate strategies adopted [1]. Innovation requires creativity, critical analysis and ethics, to understand the complexity of social behaviour, technology and business [6]. To observe that local and global issues are closely related [4] and solving design problems requires interdisciplinary teams, the praxis [3] and periphery, the dominated and primitive [2].