Deconstruction and Decolonizing of Fashion By: Katherine Soucie Fashion is a form of cultural production based on a system of collaborative processes. It is a language that communicates and embodies the ability to express identity through its transformative qualities, and provides the shape to our daily social experience. From this framework, which is deeply embedded within a social tradition, I view this space as an opportunity to shift this narrative and expand my role as a designer into an area where I operate as the observer, researcher, explorer, and interpreter of fashion through a textile deconstructivist practice.
body. I have been able to generate new applications and an association with hosiery by showcasing the valuable role that waste textiles has to offer as a creative material resource and tool for research.
It is from this positioning that I seek to alter the perception and value structure of the materials, tools, and technologies I explore in my research and practice by orchestrating a series of experimental zero-waste deconstructivist methods with the waste hosiery (pantyhose) I work with using a set of constructed situations. I purposely administer a series of disruptions to the order and modes of communication we often associate with women’s hosiery along with its history and traditional use by shifting it off the legs of women into other territories so that this material can be experienced on and off the
The field of textiles is complex. The evolution of the industry and its history is one that reflects our human history - socially, politically, economically, culturally, etc. Each piece of textile, whether it is handmade or mass manufactured, represents an identity, which is a powerful communication tool that contributes to the performance and identity of garments, accessories, or 3D form it will eventually take.
The modes of production used to transform this waste resource include the use of craft applications with obsolete sewing/textile machinery in collaboration with digital technology to produce zero-waste textiles. This hybrid system of applications resulted in the development of an industrial method of upcycling that then supported the creation of an alternate design system and business model. The imI believe that in order to decolonize fashion, we plementation of deconstructivist methods through must begin by shifting the collaborative processes a zero-waste philosophy using waste materials has and methods used in the making of textiles. The col- spearheaded a series of individual and collective laborative nature between materials, resources, and collaborative processes, impacting my understantechnologies requires a complete decolonisation ding of the importance of material identity in the from its past. making of fashion.
Since 2002, I have been exploring the use of pre-consumer waste hosiery (castoffs from the manufacturing process) in my research and practice. I developed this concept of working with pre-consumer waste while I was a textile student, motivated by this waste resource because I was looking to create a new sustainable approach by reimagining the role of craft in the manufacturing and making of textiles in the 21st century. With the encouragement of my professors and grant funding, my concept became a reality, and I established my zero-waste textile and design studio Sans Soucie in Vancouver in 2003. My initial research explored the use of signature hosiery textiles as clothing and accessories. As my
Sans Soucie hosiery transformation process, hand printed waste hosiery using low impact and metal free pigments, 2009. Photo by Ian Sheh
