Coronavirus has reshaped the fashion runways but it has also prompted many to realise that the industry needs a completely new frame of mind to survive and must also be reinvented if we want our planet to thrive rather than perish. But, while maybe most of us realised this only in the last twelve months as Coronavirus turned into a global emergency, there have been researchers who have focused for years on finding new ways to develop innovative systems to change the fashion industry.
Among them there is Holly McQuillan who, as you may remember, we mentioned in yesterday's post in connection with Liam Young's film "Planet City". McQuillan made in collaboration with Karin Peterson and Kathryn Walters some of the costumes for Liam Young's project, but she is also the founder of the Zero Waste Design Online International collective and has been working on a PhD dissertation on the topic.
The dissertation, entitled "Zero Waste Systems Thinking: Multimorphic Textile-Forms", is available to download at this link, and it is an itnriguing read not just for fashion designers, but for pattern cutters and textiles designers and owners of manufacturing plants as well.
In the 630-page tome McQuillan analyses how the fashion industry may be able respond to the environmental crisis. As McQuillan explains in the book, cut-and-sew is the most common method of garment construction used in industry, but it can also be exploitative, time-consuming and wasteful. Questioning how technology can further shape form-making, McQuillan looked at Issey Miyake and Dai Fujiwara's A-POC system, but also at recent explorations on whole garment weaving by Anna Piper, Jacqueline Lefferts, and Claire Harvey.
After developing sketches and mock up paper maquettes, McQuillan moved onto experimenting with a variety of prototyping methods. In the central part of the book she therefore proceeds to present us with some of the results of her prototyping processes, with a series of technical developments, textile studies and experiments aimed at expanding the form-design methods available for whole garment weaving in the context of zero waste system design. McQuillan looks at a series of different garments, including coats, T-shirts, trousers and gowns.
The initial group of experiments explore how to digitally apply ideas of controlling the behaviour of textiles and using 3D fashion design software program CLO3D to visualize the expression of these concepts. As the research progresses, McQuillan introduces zero waste pattern cutting for flat and woven textile-forms and intriguing studies about weave bindings for multi-layered textiles, heat-reactive yarns and moulding.
Some of these techniques like the one about the creation of fitted areas in combination with expansive fullness may be used for refined Haute Couture garments (McQuillan employs it in her dissertation to construct a gown with a fitted bodice and a full-flared skirt), but also for visually striking costumes.
McQuillan applied for example a few of these processes to the costumes for Liam Young's "Planet City" that are explored in the final part of the volume in great detail. The dissertation allows us therefore to look at the work that went into the designs for the Zero Waste Weavers and the Algae Divers and discover how McQuillan combined colour and surface pattern interacting with form-making processes or how she used heat reactive yarns to manipulate form and surface texture.
There is not a real conclusion to this book and actually there shouldn't be: McQuillan proposes us methods that may not fix fashion forever but that may introduce more radical changes to the fashion system (McQuillan also posts her experiments - such as the processes for embedding 3D form and detail into an apparently 2D textile - on her Instagram page which is definitely worth following).
As a whole this is a mind-expanding and thought-provoking research, a volume recommended to architects as well as it looks at principles such as density, stability and flexibility and at new design systems (interior designers may also benefit from McQuillan's researches as they can inspire us to think about how to recycle textiles employed for interior pieces). So, let's leave fashion shows and digital fashion weeks behind and go back to study and research more to genuinely understand how manufacturing garments may change in future.
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