18
Showerthought: I used to think 'zero waste' fashion was just a gimmick for rich people.
Then I saw a designer at a local show in Austin last year make a whole collection from deadstock fabric and old seatbelts... and it looked amazing. The shapes were sharp, not just crunchy and shapeless like I expected. It made me look up the numbers, and apparently the fashion industry throws away something like 92 million tons of material a year. That's a real problem. Now I'm trying to sketch some ideas using only scrap or recycled materials, but it's harder than it looks. Has anyone else tried designing with real limits like that and found it actually helped their ideas?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
theac631mo ago
Yeah, @william_torres gets it... limits force new shapes.
8
william_torres1mo ago
Read about a designer who only uses fabric scraps from factory floors. She said the limits forced her to get clever with pattern shapes, like a puzzle. Instead of just cutting big pieces, she'd make sleeves from long strips and join them. My own tries with old t-shirts were a mess at first, but sewing them into a patchwork panel for a bag back worked. The constraint makes you solve problems you'd just avoid with new cloth.
5
william_torres1mo ago
My buddy tried making a jacket from old jeans. He had to cut the back panel from three different pairs because none had enough fabric in one piece. The seams ended up looking like a road map but it actually gave the jacket cool lines. He said working with scraps taught him more about pattern making than any tutorial.
-1