Our lecture with Fiona Mills was an introduction into the
concept of Zero Waste pattern cutting. The objective of this process is quite
simply to reduce the amount of waste produced in the creative and commercial
pattern cutting process. Shockingly, 15-20% of fabric waste is produced at this
stage in current commercial practice with even greater waste produced by
high-end designers as a result of their elaborate and complicated designs. This
is worrying as, despite the protestations of many big brands, much of that
waste does not get reused or recycled. This is even more of a problem now as
fashion is fast moving and the seasonal trends mean that more garments are
produced at a quicker pace; therefore greater wastage.
It is then interesting that though this is a contemporary
issue, the practice of Zero Waste Pattern Cutting has been around for centuries
and takes inspiration from the first garments ever produced. This harks back to
a time when fabric was a valuable commodity as Roman and Grecian garments would
be constructed using entire lengths of fabric and shaped simply by tucking and
draping.
Fiona then spoke to us about the Yield exhibition held in
New Zealand in 2011 that celebrated the use of Zero Waste in modern practice. The
exhibition brought together a diverse cross-section of designers and researchers
that are the forerunners of this field. This ranged from young designers such
as Julia Hamsden, a recent design student, who works primarily with menswear
and uses the waste pattern to create quirky grown-on details on generic
garments for the commercial sector. On the other end of the spectrum, there are
designers such as Yeohlee Tang who create garments for high fashion who have
experimented with the technique for a high-fashion market.
The lecture followed an afternoon workshop with Fiona
herself who has just completed a masters with her research based around
transforming commercial and designer patterns into Zero-Waste garments. As part
of the workshop, we were given a set of pattern designs from the Yield exhibition
and were asked to recreate the design without any instructions. This struck me
as a bit of an odd request as I regard pattern-cutting as being about precision
and accuracy. But Fiona assured us that it was just about having fun with the construction
process and being creative.
I decided to take her word for it and chose to work with a skirt
pattern by Yeolee Tang. It seemed simple enough but when I got down to cutting
and reassembling the pieces I just couldn't figure out how to put it all
together so that it looked like a designer skirt. I really didn't help that I didn't have any clear images to see what the end product should look like so
essentially I was trying to re-create something that I had never seen before! Since
I have major control issues, this was quite a frustrating process. But Fiona
was pretty encouraging and eventually I managed to fit all the pieces fit
together so that they actually resembled a garment.
Aggravatingly, when I got home I Googled an image of the
garment I had tried to recreate and it turned out that my skirt looked nothing
like the original! *deep breaths*
But I won’t lose my mind completely as at the end of it all
Fiona reminded me that the process was just about experimentation and creating
original designs through the process of problem solving. This is something I'm very interested and might even take another crack at it when I start designing for my next project. All in all, a really great lecture with an equally engaging and friendly lecturer.
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