TREND DEC E M BER 20 1 6
Fashion
An illusive dream?
The UltraBOOST Uncaged Parley made from recycled plastic debris found in the oceans. On display at the 2016 Bayley Designs of the Year Exhibit at London’s new Design Museum in Kensington 24 November 2016 - 19 February 2017 Adults £10 // Student £7.50
Introduction Coco Chanel once famously said, “Fashion changes, but style endures”. While this may be true from an artistic and philosophical perspective it is the former that keeps the £21billion fashion world a turning. What once used to be a bi-annual affair, is now a haze of pre-season, high-season and postseasons pandemonium, spurred on by a demand for faster and faster delivery and ever decreasing lead times. But how do we do change habitually not only as an industry but as consumer’s too? This editorial looks to explore creative solutions to this global problem — with a particular focus on the relationship between sustainability and technology — and discuss how this will affect upcoming trends in terms of formal and aesthetic properties.
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inside T R E N D DE CE MBE R 201 6
Fashions of the future
Chasing an illusive dream?
Adidas x Parley PAGE 2
Introduction PAGE 3
ZERO WASTE PAGE 10
Tencel Town PAGE 14
London Design Museum PAGE 16
Bath Fashion Museum Spotlight on textiles designer Sam Hodgins PAGE 30
PAGE 24
Conclusion PAGE 31 1. 5
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The fashion industry
An Overview
Last year, filmmaking collective Untold Creative released a documentary titled The True Cost which explores the manufacturing process from inception through to consumer. Creative Director of the sustainability consultancy company Eco-Age and an executive producer on the film, Livia Firth, spoke in a recent interview about the dehumanisation of workers, who very often belong to nations the UN describes as “the world’s least developed”. When speaking with union workers in Bangladesh she said there was an outcry for brands to treat the lives of garment workers at the “same level as they treat the lives of people in the West”. “Their lives are not cheaper and yet we consider them like that”. But sadly, human rights is only one component of the problem. Designer and sustainability activist Eileen Fisher went so far as to say that the clothing industry is the “second largest polluter in the world… second only to oil”. It takes more than 20,000 litres of water to produce one cotton tee shirt and cotton, which is the world’s most commonly used natural fibre, consumes 25% of the world’s insecticides and 10% of all agricultural chemicals. This is only the tip of the — rapidly melting
“Their lives are not cheaper and yet we consider them like that”
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— iceberg, with synthetic dyeing, an average fabric yield of 80%, and an estimated 10.5 Million tonnes of clothing going into landfill each year in America alone. Changes need to be made to the way we use and produce clothing and fast.
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“Their lives are not cheaper and yet we consider them like that�
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Waste not want not
ZERO WASTE FASHION When garments are manufactured an average of 15% of the fabric is discarded at the cutting stage. This means that on average, for every ten metres of fabric produced the equivalent of one and a half metres instantly ends up in landfill. Enter, zero waste. This is the idea that the entirety of the fabric is incorporated into the garment in one way or another. Though zero waste is not a new technology in and of itself — and in fact, frequently draws from traditional pattern making techniques popular prior to the invention of tailoring and the standardised pattern cutting we see today — it frequently utilises technology to create new and innovative ways to view and dress the form. Working with Computer Aided Design pattern making programmes like Gerber Accumark or threedimensional design software like CLO3D allows designers to gain a better understanding of the interconnectivity between the “jigsaw pieces” and make rapid alterations to design lines and pattern pieces.
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So what does this mean for future the future of fashion? While the macro-trend at play here may be a move towards more sustainable and ethically made garments as a whole, the actual processes involved in bringing this about is likely to create a number of micro-trends.
Expect more digital print As apparel industry-specific technology becomes increasingly more sophisticated and accessible, we can expect to see more digital printed garments in stores. In the conventional construction of high end patterned garments, pieces must be matched and aligned so that the seaming does not interrupt the imagery woven into the fabric. This can result in even more fabric waste. With computer aided design and digital printing however, the positioning of patterns onto the three-dimensional garment can be determined prior to the fabric production and the imagery and motifs are then placed onto the
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fabric design after the cut lines and orientation of pieces has been determined. Not only does this increase fabric efficiency for each individual garment but it allows brands to create their fabrics on demand. Brands can quickly reproduce digital prints, in any location reducing the quantity of fabric they need to purchase at a time and meaning additional fabric can be created in almost any country provided they have the digital printing technology. What this does is streamline the brand’s whole sourcing strategy as they are not relying on fabric being woven in a particular location ahead of time, rather they can purchase large quantities of non-dyed, unprinted fabric that can then be modified on a season to season basis. In many cases, this will also reduce the distance that fabric and garments have to travel throughout the various stages of the manufacturing process as in many cases production can now be conducted under the one roof. Transportation is one of the key elements contributing to
any company’s carbon footprint. An example of digital printing can be seen in the work of New Zealand textiles designer Sam Hodgins on page 30.
The old will be new The world of twentyfirst century fashion has already seen a lot of reimagining of previously explored trends, but the primary focus has been on styles of the 1900s. There are a number of different approaches when creating zero waste garments. One is to take the conventional garment pattern as we know it today, experiment with different ways of laying these out onto the fabric to find the most efficient “lay-plan,” and then incorporate the excess fabric into other pattern pieces. Another approach, however, is to discard this method of pattern making entirely and look to other ways of constructing garments. To do this, designers must look
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much further back in history to civilisations like the ancient Greek, Egyptian, Roman and Japanese. The fashions of the Greek, Egyptian and Roman looked at different ways of draping the fabric on the physical form, rather than creating seams as we do today. This meant that the cloth often remained uncut and the same piece could be repurposed in a variety of different ways. London like many major cities across the world, has been home to a number of excellent exhibitions exploring each of these cultures. The British Museum is currently displaying a collection titled Defacing the past: damnation and desecration in imperial Rome, which features “a selection of coins, inscriptions, sculptures and papyri” from Rome, Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece. Images from the exhibition can be seen in on pages 12-14. The Japanese also had a unique way of viewing garments. Kimonos are made from “single bolts of cloth, about 36cm wide and 11 metres long, which are cut into seven straight pieces”. The Victoria & Albert Museum has “been collecting Japanese art and design since it was founded in 1852 and now holds one of the world’s most comprehensive collections”. Western fashion has a long history
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of being influenced by Eastern culture and design and it due time we draw inspiration in terms of construction approach. The influence of traditional Japanese culture over the Western aesthetic however is already well underway with trend-lead United Kingdom fashion retailer Topshop recently debuting embroidered shoes and jeans.
Androgyny A macro-trend of its own merits, androgynous clothing may also be a bi-product of zero waste or minimal waste designs. Conventional pattern making uses two different terms when discussing the formal qualities of garments; suppression and flare. This is based on the idea of viewing the human figure first as a vertical cylindrical form that is then altered by creating seams, darts or folds in the fabric so that the result is smaller in the waist and larger at the bust and hips. This removal of volume in the garment is known as suppression while the inverse is called flare.
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In most contemporary clothing the excess fabric suppressed during the draping or pattern making process to create fitted garments is normally removed entirely to reduce bulk. This removed fabric is one of the primary contributors to the 15% of fabric that literally ends up on the cutting room floor. While it is possible to reincorporate darting in zero waste designs it is very challenging and many designers opt to introduce flare into various elements of the garment and work further away from the form to give themselves more leeway. This alters the silhouette created and many designers are choosing to play into this less form fitting look as demand increases for wider perceptions of gender, particularly from within LGBT and nonbinary communities. It is very likely this will result in an increase in larger more abstracted silhouettes that focus more on the form of the garment than gendering its wearer. One final trend that may resurge, for entirely different reasons than has previously motivated its incorporation into mainstream fashion, is raw edges. What was once just utilised as a way of expressing rebellion against the traditional techniques of tailoring and the lifestyle it symbolised — particularly seen in subcultures like punk or grunge — now serves another purpose entirely. Many designers have showcased work that uses alternative finishings as a design feature, such as the work of Mark Liu, who uses laser cutting technology to create incisions that go beyond just separating pieces; they produce decorative edges and trims that serve both function and aesthetic. Examples of Liu’s work can be seen in figure 11 and 12. Raw edges or finishing techniques like bias binding will give designers more flexibility when creating garments that prioritise ethics and sustainability while giving consumers another micro-trend to experiment with in their everyday self-styling.
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TENCEL TOW The New
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Cotton Another response to sustainability is through the exploration and development of new materials. One fairly new material, which can already be found in the wares of many retailers around the world, including here in the United Kingdom is Tencel. Already used in products like River Island’s high stretch denim range (picutred left) this fabric is also known as lyocell. The fabric is created from regenerated wood cellulose and is considered to be one of the most environmentally friendly fabrics available today. It is created using similar processes to rayon and bamboo fabric but with a supply chain transparency not found in the former. This is due the wood pulp being obtained from eucalyptus trees that can be grown on farms at a rapid rate. This pulp is treated in “what is known as a closed loop process” whereby the recovery rate of solvents is 99.5% through effective recycling. The remaining 0.5% of emissions is then “decomposed in biological purification plants”. The fabric never requires bleaching due to its natural properties and is naturally resistant to wrinkles. It also lends these properties when blended with other natural fibres including hemp, cotton and wool. Consideration must be paid to where this fabric is sourced from, however, as some manufacturers are known to cut corners and use strong chemicals during the process in lieu of the sustainable alternatives. One of the ways this development may effect fashion trends — in addition to the obvious alteration of the fibre composition within our clothes — is an increase in the use of techniques typically seen in silk garments. Although there are currently a number of cheaper man-made silk alternatives available to manufacturers they all currently bear the stigma of being low quality and terrible for the environment. Tencel is one of the first sustainable options that produces a similar drape as silk and this will no doubt effect the type and style of garments we see on the high street. With an influx of faux silk camis, slip dresses, robelike dresses and kimono inspired pieces already flooding the market it is very likely we have not seen the last of feminine, nightwear and lingerie inspired pieces. Pair that with the luxe trends that took 2016/17 by storm and it screams a contemporary 1920s and 1930s old Hollywood revival. This spotlight is not just coming from the retailers, however, with the Victoria & Albert Museum housing a collection titled Undressed: A Brief History of Underwear from April this year right through to March 2017 and London’s Fashion and Textile Museum showcasing a collection of 1920s “Jazz Age” fashions and photographs from September 2016 until January of next year.
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LONDON DESIGN MUSEUM
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Hosted by London’s newly reopened Design Museum, the Beazley Design Awards celebrate design that act as agents of change, “enabling access, extending design practice or capturing the spirit of the year.” Now in it’s nineth year the 2016 collection included of designs of all different mediums. From a video game where you play as civilians amongst a raging war to more efficient and user friendly kitchen appliances, it was clear ethical practices and sustainability was at the core of the exhibition.
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B AT H FA S H I O N M U S E U M
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Spotlight on
Sam Hodgins UP AND COMING NEW ZEALAND TEXTILES DESIGNER TALKS DIGITAL PRINTING
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Raised in the country town of Tinui in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand, textiles designer Sam Hodgins has recently released a digital print collection titled “Hiding the Hurt”. The idea behind the collection was the idea of emotional suppression, which is a mental defense used by the brain in an attempt to avoid feeling and showing intense emotion. It can occur subconsciously after a highly traumatic event, but is most often used consciously to present an outwardly calm exterior when feeling strong emotion. The primary goal for this project was to raise awareness of emotion suppression and the implications of an emotional breakdown by illustrating the problem and prompting a conversation. This will help the viewer to realise the effect that emotion suppression has on them and to find ways to address the problem if it is affecting them negatively. The collection is printed on cotton drill in a light, green tinged grey and a darker storm grey. “The application that I have visualized is androgynous outerwear and boxy separates that do not accentuate the wearers shape. I chose this because emotion suppression is not limited to one gender, and to target my designs toward one gender or another would be ignoring a whole group of people who are equally affected.”
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Conclusion Though the commercial viability of zero waste is yet to be determined, the attention it is receiving from both recent graduate and established designers is bound to have a reverberating influence over the entire industry. Market research shows that consumers are caring less about brand loyalty, or the “who” of the industry and more about the value and processes undertaken to produce the garments — the “how” and the “why”. Technology and social media is holding manufacturers more accountable with every season and developments are continuing to progress as the textiles industry searches for new and more efficient ways to manufacture clothes. This editorial has presented just a small selection of the options available to the designers and retailers of today. We, as an industry and a collective consumer culture, must constantly question ourselves — why are we using and producing apparel? Is it to meet physical needs in more efficient, sustainable and expressive ways, or are we consuming for the sake of consuming, perpetuating fast fashion purchasing behaviour in the hopes it will meet our need for self actualisation? Or are we simply chasing an illusive dream.
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