Fashion Industry

 

We live in a consumer society where we quickly discard everything and buy lots of new things. In the clothing industry this happens a lot. The research The Dutch Clothing Mountain of the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (2020, May 12) describes that an average Dutchman has 50 unworn items hanging in his/her closet and that 40 are thrown away annually.

 

For me personally, sustainability is of great importance. An eye opener for me was the documentary The True Cost (2015). From then on, sustainability has become one of the guiding principles in my projects. For example, Lars Svendsen tells us that a dream is always sold to you when selling a garment, which will never be realized, therefore it is difficult to build a relationship between the item and the wearer. However, building a relationship is important to give the garments a longer life. By giving love and becoming more attached to it, you automatically treat it more sparingly and well. These are my basic principles that I always work with in my projects.

Re-view

In my project I want to make people look at their old garments in a different way and bring back the love you once had for that one garment. I take the new out of the old and inspire others to do the same. 

For my graduation, I created a collection built from existing garments, which I do not cut. This by, for example, putting on the garments in a different way or shaping them around the body in a new way. By wearing them in different ways you see what else a garment can offer you, which is important for the good relationship to continue to enjoy it. Questions that helped me with this were, for example, what happens if I step with my leg into a sleeve? Or if I put my pant leg on over my head? 

Because it is not cut, the garment is always able to return to its original state or to a new appearance. One of the solutions I have found to connect the garments is the button-loop connection. It is very easy to attach and detach by yourself so that this can remain circular too.

Unite

However, I don't make just any collection, it's actually a project where the other person is very important. It is mainly about the concept that is developed, a new design method. My designs are intended as an example to show my design way, to inspire others with it and to let them apply it themselves. This project will therefore develop further into a kind of workshop in which work can be done collectively. In this way the possibility is given to let it work in an educational way so that a development and change can actually occur. I think it is very important that consumers themselves can make different choices, that consumers can also be producers and that you regain control over your own clothing.

Providing handles

Due to corona, it was difficult to do physical research for workshop development in 2021. Therefore, I chose to clearly define my goal and target group to see how I could achieve the same effect in a different way. As a starting point, I created the following videos, which will be shown on my Instagram page. 

After graduating, I will continue to study sustainability to become an expert in this field. During this new master course I will continue the development towards workshops for this project, in the hope that we will soon be able to do more activities together.