Womenswear: 360° Materials autumn/winter 2011/12

Grainy pattern weave with random dust-effect surface created with needle-punched and felted wool
Naomi Jane Foot
source: WGSN 2010


The Stone Masters: California Rock Climbers in the Seventies
By John Long and Dean Fidelman
Publisher: T Adler
ISBN: 0984094903
source: WGSN 2010

You call it drab, I call it innovation.

A massive aspect to this studio brief is addressing the issue of Sustainability when we refine our fashion practice, aesthetic and design philosophy.
It is more than jumping on the eco-bandwagon; the issue of sustainability isn't just concerned with using eco-fibres and practicing ethical manufacturing. To challenge us and actively engage in the cycle of clothing, the brief entails a garment to be constructed out of pre-loved textiles, a term often reffered to as 'up-cycling'.

With that term considered, I did a sneaky google search on up-cycling to work out what it was, and what it wasn't:

- "Over the last 20 years re-using old garments in new creations is a common phenomenon. But to call the haute couture techniques just recycling is a bit of an understatement. The process of up-cycling is more than just use old and raw material. By this kind of re-use the raw material is augmented into an object of higher status than the original object. It is about upgrading used material and making it more desirable than it was at the start." (Amfibang, Upcycling Fashion:Maison Margiela, 2008)


Maison de Martin Margiela, jacket made with soccer balls.

- "Upcycling receives extra street cred by addressing the many social challenges that the fashion industry faces. As the material is readily available it slows down the factory’s supply demands. And there is an immediate gain of longer lead times for delivery, thus minimising issues such as unpaid overtime of garment workers, which is one of many criticisms from organisations campaigning for labour rights.
Elegant upcycling does not only lower textile waste, it is one potential solution to the future challenges of finite raw materials as the Earth’s population increases by an extra 1.3billion people by mid-2020 – if UN predictions hold true." (UK Metro, Eco-fashion takes over the high street, 2010)


Colin Firth's wife, Livia Giuggioli’s choice of gown for this year’s Oscars was a dress designed by Orsola de Castro of From Somewhere from pre-consumer waste of high-end Italian design manufacturers: end-of-roll fabric, discarded silk and organza offcuts, as well as silk chiffon plucked from unfinished petticoats and other cutting process leftovers.

- http://planetgreen.discovery.com/games-quizzes/vote-decade-upcycled-fashion.html (just something interactive to amuse oneself with using fashion as an excuse to present concept-less, "eco-designs")



Sustainable fashion isn't about making a princess dress from the thousand aluminium cans you scavenged from your bin (which would have gone to recollection anyway). It isn't about stating your ethical choice of fabrics by using cotton as your premium fibre content. Sustainability entails the acknowledgement of issues about origin of fabrics, longevity of garments, technical and labour production, carbon footprints, mass consumption, quality, enduribility. I have decided to research one of each aspect and present an exploration of the place sustainability has in the industry worldwide, and in Brisbane. And through this come to conclusions on my own sustainable appreciation within my design philosophy.

And Now For Something Diffferent

Studio briefs, up until this semester, have been fairly structured and coherent...creative freedom limitless, but on reflection, highly absorbed by traditional media conventions that influence fashion. We have accepted WGSN as our bible, and have delved into the history of styles and sillhouettes to regurgitate class-old pieces of inspiration.
It could be considered that, up until now, we have not really excercised our full potential of creative realms.
So when initially briefed about the project and change of direction for this half-year of studio, there were of course mixed feelings of apprehension, excitement and anxieties. These feelings aside and after deeper reflection, I have decided that the project for this semester entails a reason and priviledge to exploit the cultural spectors hiding in Brisbane.

For Us By Us is a collaborative project between the second year BFA Fashion students at QUT and 6 locally practicing artists. It is a fused concept brought together by media/arts enterprise RaRaCurio and local arts initiative Vegas Spray.
The purpose for the collaboration was to challenge the traditional ideas about funcion, aesthetic and context in both art and fashion. It is about merging the influences of art into the practice of fashion, to boost fashion's creative and innovative credibility and art's commercial viability. This dialectual fusion will push students and artists to find the median between the co-existing practices, and has the potential to really place Brisbane on the cultural map if it explodes into community with success. The process will be documented and the end outcome of the collaboration will be showcased in film and exhibition format.

I personally feel as though this project is bigger than Ben Hur, and finally something tangible for Brisbane's perceived lack of cultural substenance. I was talking to a Brisbane ex-pat in Melbourne recently, who claimed that (in terms of cultural potential) "Sydney (was) the mistress who you could get good use out of every now and then, but Melbourne (was) the wife you just wanted to stay with. Brisbane (was) the gangly, awkward tween in the middle." I don't agree with this statement, but I also don't totally dis-agree. True, Brisbane is a young and developing town...but we have the creative talent, we have the resources. Up until now it has just been very hard to find an avenue to bring it all together and make something happen. So I am considering this project not only as something for me to exploit in terms of the people and resources I have access to, but also I endow it to my pursuits and will to justify what this town has to offer.

Let the collaboration begin.