How do we design and produce textile-forms for the body without creating waste?

This paper discusses the collaborative project the authors undertook for the speculativefilm Planet City in the context of a research program titled Critical Textile Topologies. Itoutlines the experimental design research methodology undertaken in the project, andreflects on the tension between design practice and design research that occurred in thedevelopment of multimorphic textile-based forms using whole garment weaving. Afteroutlining the project as a whole, two key areas are discussed: The negotiation betweenexpectations relating to design practice and the requirements of experimental designresearch; and the emergence of multimorphic understanding of this kind ofinterdisciplinary design practice. Planet City provided the researchers with a clear‘laboratory’ context to experiment within, rapidly driving the research forward in order topresent a speculative vision for the future. The paper presents this research as an exampleof interdisciplinarity situated at the borderline between practice and research,demonstrating that when balance is maintained between various practical and researchdrivers new knowledge and an enticing vision for the future can be developed.

Experiment 0 tunic and trousers: cut but unshrunk, shrunk on mould, uniformly shrunk [6 pieces]

Cotton and polyester

These textile-forms do not require new technology, only rethinking how existing technology is currently used and understood. Using an innovative design process that enables the production of 2D woven textiles with the form embedded into the weave structure, these structures and heat-reactive fibres produce zero waste garments (or other textile-forms) through cutting and heat-forming over a 3D mould, with minimal or no assembly required. The textile-form can also be uniformly shrunk or altered with heat over many alternative forms to manipulate its form further at any stage of this lifetime. The overall aesthetic expression of the garment – its texture and form – emerges from the making process, and is therefore unique to each textile-form.

This process transforms garment construction from what is usually a labour-intensive hand process to an almost fully automated one – and front loading or reversing the 'craft' of making to the design stage, while leaving the design perpetually ‘unfinished’. Each different decision and the sequence of alteration becomes an extension of the design and prototyping process, unveiling connections and unintended consequences of earlier decisions and material choices.

This article describes the use of three-dimensional (3D) software in zero-waste fashion design, with a focus on its application in the context of the authors’ research and experience in industry and education. It expands on its use in visualisation for merchandising and marketing, to discuss how as a hybrid design and prototyping tool, 3D software could transform zero-waste design in industry, education and research. This research uses an experimental design approach and reflects on the authors’ design process before using 3D software, and its transformation upon learning, due to its utility for holistic 2D/3D practices. The article explores a range of examples of 3D software in use, revealing new design workflows that it allows for in articulating the relationship between form, pattern cutting and waste – and concludes that the advantages of 3D software to augment the garment design process is particularly evident for zero-waste fashion design.

As our understanding of fashion and sustainability broadens beyond quantified accounts of supply chains and material use, the fashion system requires an expanded, holistic understanding of the fabricated body and mind, and how design may contribute to their formation. In this chapter we weave connections between mind, body, garment and cloth, beginning with our practice in zero waste fashion design, in relation to industry and user. We then examine these ideas in relation to radical craft practitioners such as the Friends of Light collective and Yoshiyuki Minami of Manonik, both of whom employ hand-weaving to create three-dimensional garments with minimal waste, while intentionally and explicitly giving value to the meditative aspect of the ancient yet modern craft. We contrast these practices with those of avant garde fashion designers Rickard Lindqvist of Atacac and Gabi Asfour of Threeasfour, whose garments may produce fabric waste but whose practices seem to be underpinned by a holistic embracing of the body in their designed garments. The chapter asks questions about the presence and absence of mind-body connections in contemporary fashion design practice, and the roles of technology, weaving and cutting, framed as crafts, in facilitating these connections.

The Sulfuric Tunic, part of the Critical Textile Topologies X Planet City project, is a multimorphic textile-form, produced through whole-garment weaving. It embodies experimental design research that explores reversed crafting, zero-waste systems thinking, and complex textile behaviour. Its design incorporates notions of hyper-local manufacturing and circularity in a positive future-making context. Critical Textile Topologies is a collective of designer-researchers exploring new design expressions, processes and methods for critical understandings of textile-forms through questioning what materials, textiles, and form are.

Zero Waste System Thinking: Multimorphic Textile-Forms is situated in the context of the rapidly unfolding environmental crisis and the dominant response to this in the industry - the circular economy. It began by building on existing knowledge around sustainable fashion and textiles, and zero waste design practice. The research program is constructed from three interconnected theories: transition design; post-anthropocentric design; and design as future-making. It adopts a transition design “posture” of holistic zero waste system design to develop processes for garment design and manufacturing.

Zero Waste Systems Thinking: Multimorphic Textile-Forms explores the theoretical, aesthetic and technical development of systems and methods for zero waste textile-forms. It presents a range of experimental field tests, as well as interviews and design experiments using a variety of prototyping methods to deepen understanding of the existing context, and to propose methods and theory for a new understanding of the relationship between designer and system, textile and form. Outside of fully fashioned or 3D knitting, methods for simultaneous textile-form design and construction are limited. Conventionally, weaving is a two-dimensional practice – which through cutting and sewing may become form. Cut-and-sew is the most common method of garment construction used in industry; however, it can also be exploitative, time-consuming and wasteful. The current shallow understanding of the relationship between woven textiles and form limits how designers could transform industries and the built environment. This research questions how technology can further shape form-making, and follows some of the lines of inquiry forged by the work of Issey Miyake and Dai Fujiwara in A-POC, and recent explorations on whole garment weaving by Anna Piper, Jacqueline Lefferts, and Claire Harvey. This research undertook a series of experiments which aimed to expand the form-design methods available for whole garment weaving in the context of zero waste system design. The multimorphic and analogue-digital craft practice develops new understandings of textile design and manufacturing elements, such as jacquard looms and weave structures, for use in micro-manufacturing contexts. Its holistic and disruptive reshaping of form-making has the potential to future-make the industry, our cities and our social fabric.

This practice-based design research explores methods of eliminating textile waste through utilising zero waste pattern cutting to expand the outcomes possible through composite garment weaving and speculates as to the implications for the wider industry and society. Employing a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, I tested known strategies in the context of industry and responded with new emergent strategies to the challenges that arose. The findings that emerged from the iterative design practice, and surrounding discussions and reflections, inform the experimental design work that follows. It is this experimental ‘future-making’ that is the focus of this paper, which outlines foundational pattern cutting theory and methods for an emerging field – composite garment weaving – as well as findings relating to the impact and use of technology in the fashion industry while bringing into sharp relief the inherent conflicts that exist within the fashion system.

This paper discusses research currently being undertaken which addresses the interrelated volume, value and cost of waste and the responsibility designers have in their creation. The paper beginning by outlining the contemporary waste problem (in the fashion industry). Then utilizing observations made during recent field tests - where waste reduction and elimination were applied to existing designs - the impact that explicit and implicit design hierarchies and complexity have on waste minimization attempts are discussed. Questions such as: is waste a problem in the context of proposed circular economy models? After all, if we have a circular economy, then any waste we make can be put back into the cycle. So, will the CE let designers (and industry) off the hook? Lastly, I speculate as to what a fashion industry without waste might look like, discussing my design response to the issues raised.