If we are seeing the diversification of fashion production and distribution, and the death of cut and sew, what might the emerging future of fashion look like?

This week I showed a group of my students the sweatshop documentary China Blue as we do every semester. It’s always an eye opener for most of them as they begin to grapple with the realities of our globalized clothing production system. Most are vaguely aware of ideas of sweat shops and poor working or environmental conditions that go toward making the clothing they buy and wear every day so cheap and accessible, but when confronted with the personal stories of boys and girls of a similar or younger age the awareness seems to stick.

The many problems of the fashion industry can be traced to its incredible degree of globalization and a lack of skills at the hands of consumers. We just don’t see the clothing being made anymore, we don’t know how it is made, so most consumers have very little understanding of the time or resources (both human and natural) it takes to design, produce and transport clothing because it is made in a factory, somewhere else and by someone else. Adding to the problem, is that fact that many western countries simply do not have production capabilities with producers closing their doors when imports become too cheap to compete with. Many consumers lack the confidence to mend a garment or modify it to better suit them, so instead buy another. So how might a technology driven re-localization of fashion production solve some of these problems?

Imagine this. You are about to go out on a Friday evening and realize you “have nothing to wear!” You pay $50 to download from the internet that latest Fall 2018 dress design you love, software modifies it to fit exactly and then sends it to your desktop 3D printer, 30 minutes later you’re out the door.

The rise of digital fabrication within industry and our communities, is signaling massive changes ahead in the way we consume and design clothing. Already online hubs for product design and dissemination such as Shapeways and Ponoko are pushing the Etsy model of community driven, small scale production and retail of products to the next level. These firms are enabling designers, users and consumers to generate and modify products and have them manufactured and easily distributed, all from their computers.

The location of design and production is shifting from large scale, mass-sameness to a micro-production, co-designed, distributed production model. The headaches of transportation and having the right products in the hands of consumers when they want them will be solved. The technology needed to turn this dream into a reality is already available; companies such as Solidoodle and Makerbot Industries are putting digital fabrication into our homes, allowing users to print household 3D objects such as door handles, utensils and toys. Makerbot Industries say “Instead of going shopping, MakerBot it!” The current drawback for these tools is the relatively low resolution of their prints and the small scale of the objects they can produce. However, as technology improves, the high resolution and larger scales available to industry will become available to home 3D printers.

Additionally the availability of high-end machinery to the public through open systems such as the Fab Lab, means that the creation of complex, high resolution outputs can also be at the hands of almost anyone, from the skilled amateur in Canada to the community group in Zambia.

Fab Labs have spread from inner-city Boston to rural India, from South Africa to the North of Norway. Activities in fab labs range from technological empowerment to peer-to-peer project-based technical training to local problem-solving to small-scale high-tech business incubation to grass-roots research. Projects being developed and produced in fab labs include solar and wind-powered turbines, thin-client computers and wireless data networks, analytical instrumentation for agriculture and healthcare, custom housing, and rapid-prototyping of rapid-prototyping machines.

Apply this scenario to the production and design of clothing and the existing fashion system becomes much more distributed. It would not mean necessarily that the existing model of fashion production and consumption would disappear, more that it would become augmented and accessible to users in ways that we might struggle to foresee. In much the same way that desktop printers and photocopiers changed the way users generated and consumed printed material, making it easier for example, for niche groups to distribute pamphlets and zines to support their own agendas, increased availability of new technologies will further remove control of the fashion system from traditional sites of fashion creation and into the hands of the skilled amateur. Users who cannot pattern-make or sew will be able to easily generate/personalize/manipulate/hack fashion objects or messages through the use of technology made tangible, allowing almost anyone to participate in the local production of fashion.

So what’s happening now? The fantastical Iris Van Herpen and the more accessible Continuum are providing us with contemporary suggestions of what our future might look like. Iris Van Herpen has been pushing the boundaries of 3D printing for fashion creation since her Crystallization and subsequent Escapism collections. She works in collaboration with well-known architects and the leading digital printing company MGX by Materialise, the results of which are some of the most stunning and confronting clothing designs since Alexander McQueen.

While currently these designs are relatively rigid and primarily for the catwalk, as technology improves the availability of new flexible printing materials will change that. An existing application which deals with the rigidity of 3D printing materials in a clever way is supplied by Continuum, who provide their N12 Bikini available on 3D printing site Shapeways, while their online software app allows users to design their own D.dress with a simple click of the mouse. The hybrid of chemistry and fashion in the form of Fabrican allows users to design, create, repair and modify clothing from home with ease, at any time. Rip your pants sitting eating your lunch on a park bench? Pull out your can of Fabrican from your handbag and patch it right then and there. An unexpected cold snap? Spray on some longer sleeves. You arrive at a party to see that someone else is wearing the exact same dress? Duck into the bathroom and modify it.

We can begin to imagine a future where open source software allows everyday users to generate 3D knitted garment design they can send to their local FABLab, while 3D printing their own buttons and closures at home. Fashion designers will sell digital files online for printing through an online digital fabrication hub such as Ponoko, while the more tech savvy users will manipulate these designs to suit their size, climate or taste before the garment is produced down the street from where they live. We can see a future where our everyday tools of clothing maintenance and fashion creation come from a can in our handbag. And imagine this: clothing fibers printed at the molecular level, allowing the raw material to be recycled into new garments when the old design is past its “fashion moment” the ultimate in closed loop design.

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ColumnWhere does the line between art and fashion dissolve? You know it when you see it.

Iris van Herpen sets her fashion firmly into the realm of art as she sculpts couture dresses into wearable organisms, translucent snake skin and three-dimensional armature for the body. Her radical approach relies on her remarkable talent for combining master-craftsmanship with innovative technology, and the sensibility of an artist.

Van Herpen explains:

For me fashion is an expression of art that is very close related to me and to my body. I see it as my expression of identity combined with desire, moods and cultural setting.

Van Herpen’s inspiration comes from the extremes of nature, yes. But also from her insatiable desire to push new thinking. Her collections thrust us into her inspirations by reflecting the beauty of life with its polarity: death and regeneration.

Her site describes:

Radiation Invasion (image below) is about the invisible radiation and signals all around us that make telecommunication possible…

…while the Synesthesia collection (top image and image below) has a neurological phenomenon as its point of departure, where a mingling of sensory perceptions occurs. There are people who can ‘see’ music, for example, or can ‘taste’ colours.

Though many of us will never wear couture, van Herpen’s ideas grant us a moment to reflect on inspiration in our own choices. Wearing a coiling snake around our bodies might not express how we choose to present ourselves, yet it can certainly inspire how we might like to. And indeed, that is the province of art, as van Herpen states:

With my work I intend to show that fashion can certainly have an added value to the world, that it is timeless and that its consumption can be less important than its beginning. Wearing clothing can create a very exciting and imperative form of self-expression.

Eco, trends, art, creativity and how they tumble through social media to shape culture fascinate EcoSalon columnist Dominique Pacheco. Her trends blog, mixingreality, speaks to these topics daily, and here at EcoSalon, she takes a weekly look at the intersection of eco and art. We call it heARTbeat.

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Artistic license might be just the cure for what ails us each fashion season.

With fashion week season slowly melting away the deep winter freeze here in Europe, it is promising to feel a bit of stylistic heat from the recent runway shows in Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, and Stockholm. Autumn/Winter 2013 might be the last thing on our minds as we struggle to channel coral-hued resort ensembles, but looking ahead can be a good thing when so many creative dimensions are at play. The sculptural experimentation seen on the catwalks during January and early February have demonstrated, perhaps, that smaller European design houses know how to take risks with conceptually bold approaches to their collections. Whether through extreme knitwear, origami fold wearables, or cool geometry, the license to explore fashion follies seems hyper-real in combination with a sustainable edge.

One of the things that I like about the smaller European shows that take place before the heavy-hitter line-ups in New York, Paris, London, and Milan is the excitement that comes from supporting local talent in style geist outposts where fashion schools and converts to sustainable style are looking to cure their fashion malaise. Perhaps this is also why some of the recent catwalk presentations can afford to be a bit more theatrical, as designers present their works as part of a storytelling continuum and with textile innovation as a creative selling point.

Designer Isabell de Hillerin’s MOSAIC collection (photo by Amos Fricke)

I was so impressed last January with the public interest in Berlin Fashion Week – anyone could attend the presentations at the Lavera Showroom (RSVP’s required, though). Berlin has demonstrated increased momentum on the green fashion frontier with venues like The GREENshowroom, The Ethical Fashion Show Berlin, as well as this year’s first Slow Fashion Awards. I was smitten yet again with Berlin-based ethical fashion label, Isabell de Hillerin, who sources many of her woven and embroidered textiles in Romania. Isabell’s new MOSAIC collection encourages the wearer to experiment freely in order to find lasting styling solutions and wardrobe combinations. The designer shares, “Playing with balance, this latest collection is inspired by its individual parts that collectively form a mosaic of colors and shapes. Rich and contrasting fabrics fuse with soft shapes to define a new whole. Folkloric handmade Romanian materials combined with clean cuts represent a position between new design and tradition.”

Princess Máxima (center) at The Green Fashion Competition during Amsterdam Fashion Week (photo courtesy of Style.com)

The much-anticipated Green Fashion Competition at Amsterdam Fashion Week generated quite a bit of interest this season, and the finalists definitely demonstrated a range of eco solutions to the three-piece runway presentation. Much of the excitement was centered around the event’s VIP guest, Princess Máxima, who won major points by attending the runway competition at the Westergasfabriek (Amsterdam’s equivalent to Bryant Park). Winners of the event included Amsterdam’s own Studio Jux and NYC’s ethical fashion it-girl, Carrie Parry.

Carrie Parry’s bold eco separates at The Green Fashion Competition in Amsterdam (photo courtesy of the designer)

Designer Carrie Parry takes the prize at The Green Fashion Competition (photo by Patricia Fewer for Hegedus Style)

Mark Smith of Style.com shared the following comment about having a real live princess at the Green Fashion Competition: “Carlien Helmink of Studio JUX, the fair-trade brand that scooped first prize for its chic collection of Nepalese-produced dresses, said, ‘She (Princess Màxima) was so enthusiastic and even told us that she had expected the jury to choose us as winner.’ New Yorker Carrie Parry, who won the Category Two prize for most promising start-up, was also impressed. ‘Having a real princess witness the unveiling of your designs is pretty much a fairy tale, isn’t it?’”

2011’s Green Fashion Competition winner Elsien Gringhuis kicked off the catwalk event (photo by Patricia Fewer for Hegedus Style)

The stuff that fairy tales are made of just might turn the tide of fast fashion. Eileen Moran of Origin 23 feels that cities like Amsterdam are definitely at the forefront of a green fashion revolution. She shared the following with us after completing the circuit in Europe during the past two weeks, “In the merger of the French Federation’s Pret a Porter and Who’s Next Paris, they decided to eliminate the So Ethic section this season. Many of the designers and buyers who have been going to that show for years to seek out what’s interesting in ethical design, moved to MINT at Modefabriek in Amsterdam or to one of the many shows in Berlin, including the GREENShowroom. I really feel that Amsterdam is going to be the next epicenter for eco and ethical fashion. In speaking with buyers, the press, and consultants, most feel that Paris is now more a place to go for fashion week runway shows as well as The Ethical Fashion Show, but Berlin and Amsterdam are steadily taking over as the destinations for trade shows.”

As a counterpoint, I found it interesting that Brazilian-born Priscilla Camargo, the founder of Hegedus Style in Amsterdam,  felt that only three pieces by each designer on the Green Fashion Competition’s runway lacked a bit of depth in terms of presenting a broad cross-section of eco and ethical fashion expressions. Priscilla commented that she was better able to understand the message of designer collections during her visit to MINT at Modefabriek. That said, she was extremely impressed by the designers’ creative efforts and the enthusiasm of the crowd, but looks forward to the event gaining more applicants from abroad for 2013. You can read more of Priscilla’s coverage via her blog.

Green Fashion Competition finalist Zaida Adriana Goveo Balmaseda’s ‘Calafuria’ collection featuring recycled fiber knitwear (photo by Peter Stigter)

As a knitwear enthusiast, I was excited to see the recycled fiber creations of Green Fashion Competition finalist, Zaida Adriana Goveo Balmaseda – who we previously featured in our article Plying A More Fashionable Fiber Frontier. Zaida’s Calafuria collection pays homage to a natural beach reserve in Tuscany that features rock formations called “tafoni.” These other-worldly forms are mimicked by the “weathering” and “cementation” of materials and surfaces in the designer’s organic pieces. Natural fiber and eco-friendly methods used include hand-spun textiles, scraps or pre-consumer waste gathered from designer studio production floors and textile centers as well as organic cotton that was naturally dyed and batted with PET recycled batting. Dead stock wool was also recycled for  the “aveolo” pieces that were stunningly tinted with natural substances and then hand-embroidered.

Dutch designer Iris van Herpen’s wearable art and ‘escapist’ sculptural couture (photo courtesy of The Wild Magazine)

Three-dimensional experimentation and extreme silhouettes were also featured prominently in the Paris Couture Fashion Week presentation of Dutch designer, Iris Van Herpen. Whether wearable art really leads us down a path of statement piece activism or even multi-purpose fashion, is debatable. That said, many of these creations do allow us to explore metaphors and vocabulary related to organicism and mimicry of nature. Both Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Stockholm and Copenhagen Fashion Week  designers seemed to be sharing this message as well – in combination with thawing out fashion lovers on blustery winter nights.

V Avenue Show Repair at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Stockholm

Gaia at Copenhagen Fashion Week

Stine Ladefoged’s extreme knitwear at Copenhagen Fashion Week

Beckmans College of Design at Copenhagen Fashion Week (photo by Kristian Löveborg)

lead image: Winde Rienstra, photo by Peter Stigter

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Haute couture goes to new extremes in order to create waves globally.

As a woman who tends to wear her favorite ‘uniforms’ to social gatherings and art/fashion events, the realm of haute couture has never really been something that I have felt particularly connected to. Sure the artistry and pageantry is alluring and the bevy of VIPs flanking the runway is seductive, but I have always considered haute couture to be an artificial phenomenon that creates a rigid caste system within fashion rather than a stage for democratic beauty – until now.  After the most recent summer fashion shows in Europe, I ask myself whether an artier side of couture might be creating a watershed moment in the future of a more aesthetically and culturally diverse fashion?

Giorgio Armani Prive Haute Couture 2011/2012 (photo: Le Segretain/Getty Images)

While Americans were celebrating Independence Day during the first week of July, editors, buyers, and celebrities had assembled for the Paris Haute Couture Week presentations, and despite the exclusivity of it all, the energy during these shows had a ripple effect throughout Europe and beyond. I read something on Twitter during this time that claimed, “Approximately five hundred fashionable women in the world are able to afford and become regular customers of haute couture.” This estimate seemed obscene and surely did not fit with my ethos of making objects of beauty accessible to all. Who are these elite couture supporters, I asked myself, and do they really have anything to do with the rest of us?

Iris Van Herpen Haute Couture 2011/2012 (photo: Victor Boyko/Getty Images)

In reviewing the Paris collections and the exquisite handwork that went into their crafting, I had a new appreciation for the designers who aim to take their clients on ecstatic flights of fancy that honor the traditions of bespoke craftsmanship and the laborious finessing of designs. Granted the price tags for these garments must be astronomical and grossly inflated in this era of economic belt tightening, but as expressions of cultural pride and imaginative ingenuity, contemporary haute couture definitely celebrates fashion as high art as well as sustaining the historic timeline of the atelier model.

Like ethical fashion, there are quality standards that haute couture designers must adopt and abide by in order to receive the prestige of calling oneself a couture house for advertising, marketing, and participation in fashion weeks on the annual calendar. Members of the Fédération française de la couture must follow strict rules and practices, for example:

• Create made-to-order couture for private clients, with one or more fittings.
• Operate a workshop (”atelier”) in Paris that employees fifteen people full-time.
• Present a collection two times a year to the press, comprising a minimum of thirty-five runs/exits with day and evening wear represented.

As fast fashion continues to erode the very soul of creative designs and our dreams about fashioning self, it seems as if indie and haute couture designers have more in common than I might previously have surmised. To be sure, their clients and company economics are typically at opposite ends of the spectrum, but the risk-taking and the hands on methods demonstrated in their production cycles allies more than divides them, at least in the spirit of the craft. I will not go so far as to say that haute couture follows a slow fashion agenda, but the idea that fashion of this sort might be a source of national pride rather than a copyright embarrassment or garment factory nightmare, is something to view as a thing of promise.

Haute couture with culturally diverse roots at Georgian Fashion Week

Perhaps there is a philanthropic nature to the women who collect and invest in couture creations in the same spirit that blue-chip art is handpicked from galleries or costly film projects are backed by individuals who believe in a story that must be told and shared. Despite the pomp and circumstance that goes on during fashion week, the integrity of the atelier as an institution that supports endangered handwork and artisan techniques is a model that is micro in nature and historically human in scale. There are, no doubt, horror stories related to the excessive use of materials in the creation of haute couture collections, not to mention the unbridled use of “luxury” fabrics and fur and the exploitation of skilled workers. But as organizations like the EcoChic Fashions in Hong Kong as well as green showcases at fashion weeks in London, Milan, Paris, and New York continue to push our definitions of eco-luxurious couture into uncharted territory, creative diversity continues to take center stage. In many instances, we really cannot overlook the fact that cultural preservation, and in turn, timeless fashion methodologies are sustained by the very presence and persistence of the haute couture shows.

EcoChic Geneva runway finale at the United Nations Headquarters (photo: Abigail Doan)

I am reminded of the diversity represented at the EcoChic Geneva runway presentation at the United Nations Headquarters in Europe during January 2010, where the cross section of cultures, textiles, and innovative approaches to redefining couture and beauty was extraordinary. If we can work to preserve fading architectural monuments, tracts of pristine park land, and indigenous folk traditions globally, then we can also labor to sustain the diversity of garments and the role of haute thinking as an agent of change. It’s the business of fashion that we should be weary of, not the persistence of the imagination or the seemingly foreign nature of biodiverse materials.

image: Iris Van Herpen Haute Couture via The Guardian

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