Kuangting Huang

Week 1 – Introduction to Sustainability

· Food wrappers (cellophane) can be used to create the effect of wrapped flowers.

· Delphiniom’s buds can be made from beads or cut up from coloured plastic bottles.

· For Lily’s blooming petals I can use some long leftover threads that are still usable.

· Fabrics can be dyed with ingredients, plants or even water left over from watercolour brushes.

Cut open a plastic bottle, cut some irregular discs and burn a candle to create the texture of the Gladiolus petals, some of the leftover beads mixed together can be used as stamens. The string of the mask is also not wasted, cut into several pieces can be used as a decorative embellishment of the background.

Artist study

Slatter, J. (no date) Veil stool, Behance. Available at: https://www.behance.net/gallery/118196653/veil-stool (Accessed: 10 October 2023). 

The amount of plastic waste produced as a result of the coronavirus epidemic is staggering. Despite the availability of reusable alternatives, billions of masks are still used every month. In order to be waste-free and continually recycled Joe Slatter has made a stool from over 4,000 discarded disposable masks collected from the streets of London. The artist named it the Veil Stool because veils are often considered beautiful, and the name suggests that beauty can be seen in items that are often discarded.

Week 2 – Emerging Technology in Fashion

I learned a lot about the world of fashion technologies from today’s talk. As the fashion industry expands, the adverse environmental effects caused by vast excess production and consumption of fashion products increases rapidly. Because of the pollution that accumulates in the air, water, and soil during the production and distribution of the garments and fibre used in this industry, it is regarded as one of the main global pollutants. Digital fashion offers a sustainable alternative to fast fashion. Having clothings that exist only in a digital or virtual from helps to minimises waste and gives customers the chance to follow the newest trends without endangering the environment. I was really interested in this approach therefore after I explored Dress X, which is one of the biggest digital fashion retailer worldwide. Dress X sells virtual clothing and provides photos of it in an effort to reduce the overconsumption of physical clothes. Customers can try on hundreds of virtual outfits in 360 degrees by using the app’s VR capability. Here are some of the designs that I found interesting:

My own approach to utilizing emerging technologies in fashion involves attempting to digitally generate patterns that I could use as a guide for my sample for embroidery. I first drew the pattern using Procreate, then used Photoshop to modify it based on an image of a butterfly. Here’s how it ends:

Week 3 – Nature

Photographed at Columbia Road Flower Market

Photographed at Horniman Museum and Gardens

Photographed many of the creature I like within London ,and sketched them and did sample.

Use the back stitch to outline the shape of the flower, use a straight stitch to show the texture of the flower and the shades of colour, use kont stitch to show the effect of the flower’s core.

Week 4 – Cultural Sustainability

Botanical dyeing is extracted from the colours of nature, and the pigments are extracted from all kinds of plants containing pigments that grow naturally in nature to dye the dyed objects. Importantly, vegetable dyeing is extracted from nature, avoiding the serious pollution problem of chemical dyes, and its environmental significance cannot be ignored.

Tie-dyeing of the White Ethnics of China

Using natural botanical dyeing, with yarn, thread, rope and other tools, the fabric is tied, sewn, bound, embellished, clamped and other forms of combinations for dyeing, and after the dyeing is completed, the thread is removed and spread out and washed.

Week 5 – Empathy

Comme des Garold’s designs are asymmetrical and disruptive, these garments are challenging and subversive, Rei Kawakubo is not a feminist, as the name of her brand Comme des Garons (like a boy) expresses a rebellion against feminisation.

CDG SS24

Wearable sculptures that resist the body are conveyed in the new season’s designs, each one filled with a rainbow of colours and a plethora of fabrics. Some of the pieces looked like they were made from children’s bedspreads, while others were printed with a camouflage-like collage of Regency portraits wrapped in large bows – perhaps a nod to the cumbersome (and equally restrictive) silhouettes of the 18th century.

CDG tells all women that they don’t have to dress up sexy for men, and Rei Kawakubo statement says get rid of the gloomy present to present a bright future.

Reflection

I learnt a lot of new and different things in this project, for example in the first week when I first started we learnt how to embroider with a machine, before that I had never tried to do machine embroidery, I had always embroidered by hand. So at the beginning I was always in a rush, I didn’t know how to control the machine and often forgot how to operate it, but luckily after these two months of practice and learning I was able to control the machine and operate it proficiently.

At the beginning of the school I was still focused in some very superficial research and work, I was trying to make samples that seemed to fit reality rather than develop it in depth as a textile designer. After many conversations with teachers, I started to use my own style to draw the ideas of what I saw and what I liked; I started to combine them and make them into a new design and a new pattern.

One of the most important things for me to reflect on is time management. In the first week, I may not have fully entered the learning atmosphere, so my efficiency was very slow, and I would delay habitually, dividing one thing into several days to do. However, I got into the study environment very quickly, and I gradually started to manage my time, make study plans, and ensure that I complete my study tasks.

I also learnt a lot about sustainability, nature, technology, culture and empathy in my weekly intro to course. I chose the aspect I was most interested in developing, which was nature. The relationship between nature and fashion is probably not only about the beautiful patterns we see on fabrics. It is even about the destruction of our living environment. So I decided to go deeper in this theme.