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What’s Going On? – Global Fashion Conference 2018
London College of Fashion, October 31st-November 1st, 2018
1
What’s Going On? – Global Fashion Conference 2018
London College of Fashion, October 31st-November 1st, 2018
Short Research Paper: Designing Garments with Evolving Aesthetics in Emergent
Systems
Dr. Timo Rissanen, Parsons School of Design, timo@newschool.edu
Lynda Grose, California College of the Arts, lgrose@cca.edu
Dr. Vibeke Riisberg, Design School Kolding, vri@dskd.dk
Corresponding author: Timo Rissanen
Author biographies: Timo Rissanen is the Assistant Professor of Fashion Design and Sustainability
at Parsons School of Design. He currently serves as the School Associate Dean of the School of
Constructed Environments, and he is one of the Associate Directors of the Tishman Environment and
Design Center. Rissanen completed a practice-based PhD on zero waste fashion design at UTS in
2013. Rissanen has co-published two books on fashion and sustainability, Shaping Sustainable
Fashion with Gwilt in 2011 and Zero Waste Fashion Design with McQuillan in 2016.
Lynda Grose is Professor of Design and Interdisciplinary Studies at California College of the Arts,
and Chair of the Fashion program. Her work in sustainability and fashion spans 28 years. She co-
founded ESPRIT’s ecollection, is co-author of the book: Fashion and Sustainability: Design for
Change, contributing author to The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Fashion and was a lead
investigator for Local Wisdom.
Vibeke Riisberg is textile designer and Associate Professor at Design School Kolding. She holds a
Ph.D. in the evolution from analogue to digital processes of printed textiles. Since 1992 she has
taught sustainable design to fashion and textile students first at Denmark’s Design School and from
1998 at Design School Kolding. Research interests include: sustainable design, textiles and fashion
education, aesthetic and user experience, and service systems.
What’s Going On? – Global Fashion Conference 2018
London College of Fashion, October 31st-November 1st, 2018
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Abstract: This paper presents an emergent systemic context in a current research project in which the
authors are engaged. The research investigates the design of service-systems that facilitate the
evolution of garments through multiple-use lives made possible with the strategic integration of
textile decoration, built up in complexity over time, such as digital printing, over-dyeing and
embroidery. The projects asks: What if a shirt were designed from the beginning as an integral part
of a fashion service system? What if the design of both the product and the system enabled the
object's aesthetic to evolve over time? The authors propose a system for iterative surface decoration
of garments over time, as an alternative to purchasing additional garments to satisfy desire. Design
for partial disassembly is a key aspect of this service-system. The authors argue that a rethinking of
the current economic and business systems is required for such a service-system to flourish. Findings
from the project so far are pointing to further research questions: What ramifications does an
evolving aesthetic have for the role of fashion and textile designers, particularly if multiple designers
drive the evolution over a period of time? What are the implications for the relationship between the
designer and user in such a service-system? The authors speculate on various business models that
would support these design-led approaches, including a sold product-service system, a leased
product-service system, lease-to-buy, sold for DIY customization, and informal shared use. The
project speculates on factors to make such a system commercially replicable within a post-growth
economic system. New language is required in such a systems redesign and the paper makes some
propositions in this respect.
Keywords: lifetime, decoration, service-systems, post-growth economics, sustainability
Research Funding and Acknowledgments: This research is supported by funding from The New
School Provost Office, the School of Fashion at Parsons School of Design, The New School, and
The Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation. Project support is provided by Raquel
Kalil (California College of the Arts) and Anurag Jain (Parsons School of Design).
Introduction
This paper reports on preliminary findings from an on-going practice-based research project. The
project investigates designing garments with evolving aesthetics in emergent, speculative systems.
The aim is to use design, technology and ‘craft of use’ to both slow the flow of materials through the
fashion system, and to provide new fashion experiences for wearers. At the same time this research
What’s Going On? – Global Fashion Conference 2018
London College of Fashion, October 31st-November 1st, 2018
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proposes a business model to support a product-service system, focusing on button-down cotton
shirts. We envision this model within a post-growth fashion economy. All of the authors worked on
the post-growth-focused Local Wisdom project led by Kate Fletcher, discussed at length in Craft of
Use (Fletcher, 2016). The economist Kate Raworth (2017) describes an economic model in which
economic activity occurs between the boundaries of a social foundation (or minimum level of human
wellbeing) and the planet’s ecological ceiling. To realize such a fashion economy requires radically
rethinking both resource use and revenue sources in fashion. We advocate for diverse solutions of
many scales, while proposing one.
In the proposed subscription model a user is provided with a white button-down cotton shirt. After a
period of use the user can return the shirt for decoration choosing among various decorations and
techniques. In the case of a digital print motif the shirt is partially disassembled, printed, reassembled
and returned to the user. If the choice is over-dyeing and/or embroidery disassembly is not necessary.
This cycle of decoration could occur several times, building up layers of decoration over time. In
addition a business like this could provide complimentary services such as garment repair and
alteration. Many product-service systems in fashion already exist, and this research builds on them.
Figure 1 shows a range of businesses across dimensions of evolution, from product to socio-technical
change, and from insular to systemic change. The system proposed in this research, initiated at the
product-service level, points to socio-technical change, as it both facilitates and requires a new type
of relationship between business and user.
[Figure 1: Business mapping from insular to systemic transformation, and from technological to
social innovation]
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London College of Fashion, October 31st-November 1st, 2018
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Background: Cotton
In this project we focus on cotton for several reasons: Cotton is the most important natural fibre,
accounting for 78% of global natural fibre market (Turley et al., 2009: 9) and about 30% of all fibre
used in the global textile sector (Forum for the Future 2018a). Yet cotton is susceptible to a broad
range of adverse economic, climate-related and political conditions. (Grose, 2016) The long-term
static average world price for cotton fibre has caused farmers in industrialized nations to shift their
acreage into higher value crops, and cotton and cotton cultivation in general to move from highly
productive capital-intensive regions to less productive labour-rich regions. Cotton fibre production
(and transportation) is susceptible to increasingly unpredictable precipitation patterns influenced by
climate change, causing more frequent disruptions to crop yields through droughts, floods and fire.
What’s Going On? – Global Fashion Conference 2018
London College of Fashion, October 31st-November 1st, 2018
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Cotton is particularly vulnerable to government policies and direct interventions, which can cause
dramatic and sudden price fluctuations (ICAC, 2013a: 2).1 2
More generally, it's now accepted that as resources become increasingly scarce, a circular economy would
be highly beneficial from both a materials and costs point of view (Forum for the Future 2018b). A true
circular economy is a steady state, post-growth economy. We see a range of emergent business
models responding to these shifting conditions, listed below and mapped out in Figure 2:
1. Brand re-sale of existing products (Eileen Fisher, Patagonia, REI)
2. Subscription models (Vigga, For Days, Style Theory)
3. Clothing repair services (Patagonia, The North Face)
4. Lending/leasing (Filippa K, Ann Taylor)
5. Rent to buy (or not) options (Mud Jeans, Rent the Runway)
6. Streamlined/systematized repurposing (Eileen Fisher Renew)
Our research is most closely related to points 2 and 6. Other researchers like Early and Goldsworthy
(2015) note there is an “opportunity to connect retailers and designers with consumers and with
garments designed for new business models”. They also note that one of the most common reasons
for disposal is boredom and that this could be addressed by "raising the customer's satisfaction with
the product". Olivetti & Cullen (2018: 1397) list lifetime extension as one of five key strategies in
the transition to sustainable material systems, a strategy we also focus on in this research. We expand
this territory by specifically focusing on the front end of the product cycle rather than the end of use
or repurposing of materials. We explore design for multiple lives and extended use, supported by a
service business aiming to enhance customer satisfaction. We explore this idea through the strategic
integration of garment construction and textile decoration designed to build in complexity over time.
We have begun with digital printing, with plans to explore over-dyeing and embroidery. These
strategies aim to meet user desires for changing looks without wasting cotton material.
[Figure 2: Fashion business mapped on product and service innovation]
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1!The!Chinese!National!reserve,!for!example,!holds!cotton!stocks!as!large!as!10!million!tons!(ICAC,!2013a:!2)!and!periodically!drops!
these!into!the!global!market!to!drive!the!commodity!price!down!and!incentivize!Chinese!farmers!to!grow!food!crops.!!
2!At!time!of!writing,!the!trade!war!between!US!and!China!threatens!to!impact!US!cotton!fiber!imports!to!China!and!cotton!apparel!
and!textiles!exports!from!China!to!US!(Cotton!Inc.!2018).!
What’s Going On? – Global Fashion Conference 2018
London College of Fashion, October 31st-November 1st, 2018
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Designing for flattening
To print a pre-existing white shirt after its initial use phase requires unpicking it in order to flatten it
for digital printing. However, initial stages of this research revealed that full disassembly was
unnecessary. Only partial disassembly to enable the garment to lie flat for printing was needed
(Riisberg and Grose 2017). At our current stage of research, we propose that certain predetermined
seams are stitched with Wear2 thread developed by C-Tech Innovation. This thread can be dissolved
through exposure to microwave radiation and is used for temporary seaming at points requiring to be
flattened (pleated areas on cuffs and yoke, for example; curved seams such as armholes), while
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London College of Fashion, October 31st-November 1st, 2018
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permanent seams are stitched with conventional thread. This partial disassembly to enable flattening
needs to be designed into the construction of the garment from the outset. Designing for flattening
can be challenging, as the relationship between the two-dimensional flat pattern, the garment and the
body underneath it defines the ultimate silhouette and fit. Considering how to most efficiently return
the three-dimensional garment to a temporary two-dimensional phase increases the complexity of the
design process.
Digital pattern cutting combined with three-dimensional simulation is helpful to include flattening
and subsequent decoration. Scaled-down analogue mock-ups of the shirts help to bridge intended
with actual outcomes rapidly; we used paper mock-ups extensively early in the project to explore
form and cut, as well as possibilities for decoration. Extensive design exploration is necessary to
arrive at the most efficient option; the aim is to design the shirt so that it can be flattened with the
least unpicking (by dissolving) and re-stitching. In future research we will employ CLO software that
allows speedy simulation of garment shapes in both two and three dimensions as well as testing
various decoration techniques, fabrics and drape.
Curricular connections
As part of this research Rissanen had students work in teams of two or three for eight weeks on a
zero waste button-down shirt that was digitally printed. However, enabling students to think in long
timespans is challenging. The experience of the students in their own lives and the traditional fashion
design curriculum have not yet shifted to familiarize students with the potential for several aesthetic
incarnations of a single garment. Further, students struggle to imagine phases of the garment's use-
life that they will personally likely not be a part of or connected to. Showing historical examples may
help; Palmer (2001: 151-4) demonstrates clients of Christian Dior having garments remade over time
to accommodate changing tastes and bodies. While remaking garments is not new, it is often new to
most of the current generation of students. The addition of various technologies to support such
practices in this proposition is also new, but there is an interest and thirst in students to adopt new
technologies, and leveraging this interest may flatten the perceptual hurdle of garment transformation.
In addition, research by Rissanen (2011: 132) has demonstrated that collars and cuffs are the first to
wear on a shirt. Replacement pieces in these areas, combined with a surface treatment service could
potentially lengthen the useful life of a garment. This implies a sustained active engagement between
the business and the customer, and/or additional service industries (for example, a dressmaker/tailor
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London College of Fashion, October 31st-November 1st, 2018
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as part of a dry cleaner). It also implies new home storage systems, where the user would keep loose
collars and cuffs for an extended period. Rethinking business models to include a fully integrated set
of services and home/retail store storage around the garment is intriguing and warrants further
research. We see the user becoming educated as they interact with the new clothing system and the
clothing system co-evolving with and through use, rather than educating consumers in a traditional
and hierarchical fashion directed by the brand or industry.
This way of thinking has been tested in different ways by each of the colleges the authors teach at.
As a larger school, Parsons has implemented a Systems and Society pathway in the BFA Fashion
Design program to provide a productive space for students to consider and explore these issues.
Design School Kolding has run projects for some time that extend over multiple semesters and years
to cover systems thinking, wardrobe studies, user engagement, materiality and design-led
sustainability responses. California College of the Arts has required studio classes on fashion and
sustainability where ideas from seminar classes are tested in practice, and students are engaged in
projects on wardrobe studies and dressing systems. These new directions are in part facilitated by the
smaller scale of the latter colleges. In all cases, we see that to introduce a systems perspective into a
fashion and textile design course does not necessarily require changes in infrastructure; the main
investment is in pedagogy and the re-orientation of faculty to follow and meet students in the co-
creation of systems thinking in fashion and textile design.
Implications
During this on-going research we have identified areas for further inquiry. As Fletcher (2017: 9)
notes, a wardrobe is “a philosophy of being”. This raises questions for our research about the social
lives of the shirts and services we propose. What assumptions are we making about users in this
research? What do we need to discover about and learn from users? Are there strategies that may
increase the likelihood of a user bringing back a shirt for decoration? What are the implications and
opportunities for business? One possibility to probe this further would be testing the shirts with
actual users as well as a brand partner, working with their customers over a period of years, to
determine if and when the wearer would return a shirt for decoration and remaking, and what that
means for business operations. This could also expand to investigating what factors the designer and
pattern cutter need to consider when designing with soluble thread and for future flattening as well as
planning for decoration evolving over time. Service design also needs further investigation. For
example, would the microwave be an external provider or managed internally? What scale of
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London College of Fashion, October 31st-November 1st, 2018
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operation would make it feasible internally? These questions and others will guide us, as this
research progresses.
References
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London College of Fashion, October 31st-November 1st, 2018
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