3. Circular fashion#

BE BLUE

Recycle, Rebuild, Re-use

Context#

Last year, ONU declared fashion industry as one of the most contaminating industries, and an environment emergency in terms of water contamination. Synthetic fibres is one of the reasons. Chemicals and dyeing processes is another, as well as mass production and fast fashion. In terms of synthetic fibres, in first place we have the process of creating the fabric, which involves using and contaminating a lot of water. In second place, every time you use the garment and wash it, it spreads microparticles of plastic, that go directly to the ocean.

“Un solo lavado de 6kg libera aproximadamente 700.000 fibras microscópicas de plástico en el medio ambiente¨

“One single cicle of the washing machine, spreads 700.000 microscopic plastic fibers to the environment.”

So, we need to avoid them or meanwhile use them wisely. Already there exists tons of polyester fabrics, that are already produced and we can re-use them with a good purpose. For example, parachutes are made of it, and recycling them to create another thing is a good choice. That’s why I chose to work with parachute recycled fabric that you don’t need to wash it.

Main idea#

I named this project ‘BE BLUE’, with similar ideas than ‘be green’ projects, but this time it is about water. We need to be concious of the contamination that synthetic fabrics, mass production and fast fashion are generating in the oceans, and think about plenty of animal/vegetal spices that are dieing as a result of it.

I’ve been working in a coat pattern, seamless, easy to DIY! You just need a synthetic fabric to recycle and a laser cut machine.
The aim of this design is to be adaptable to different wearable needs. In order to make it versatile, I created a coat that can be a poncho and a dress as well, with desmontable hood, neck and sleeves. Moreover, it has an easy assembling process (with male and female modules).

Pattern#

In order to do it, I used a poncho I had, to measure it and decide the size of the garment.

Once I did some sketches, I did the pattern in Rhino. It’s an oversized coat.

For doing it I did some research about The Post Couture fashion brand, that creates seamless garments and in your web page you can see the patterns of each garment as well.

Modules#

The next step was to solve the modules shape. I wanted something easy to assemble, minimal and that has to do with the project’s ideals. So I decided to use fishes as the symbol of it, that contains on it 4 fishes heads (female) and two types of male modules, one is the fishes tails, and the other is just 4 holes (sometimes 3), in order to weave it inside them. Moreover, you can leave the female modules inside (so you can just see the weaving) or choose to leave them in the outerpart in order to see them. I draw them with Illustrator, and then exported them to Rhino in order to apply it to the pattern, decide the size of them and in which part of the design I wanted to locate them. To create it, I used different Rhino commands such as ‘line’,’trim’, ‘array’, ‘arrayCrv’, ‘arrayLinear’,’copy’, ‘mirror’ & ‘rotate’. The ‘ArrayCrv’ command copies objects spaced along a curve, as the ‘ArrayLinear’ command copies objects spaced along a straight line in one direction.

If you want to reply yours, it is important to check that every female module fits its male, I mean you should check distances and apply them in the pattern excatly where it fits. I want the garment to be something pretty clean, so I will assemble the modules leaving the fishes on the inside of the seams. Then, in the hood and the neck I decided the fishes module to be seen.

Laser cutting#

Also, before laser cutting the garment I’ve made some tests to try the fabric in the laser cut and the assembling modules to see if they work.

Once you make them, try them and if it works on your fabric, you can proceed cutting it. Be aware of the size of the laser cut machine, in order to fit your pattern in it. In this case it was 1000x600 mm.

Laser cutting recycled parachute fabric - Circular Fashion from Lara Campos on Vimeo.

The laser cut parameters for cutting this fabric were: power 40, speed 7 and PPI/Hz 1000.

Though I reccomend you to do a test before cutting yours to see if it works with your fabric and it’s thickness.

Finishes#

The last step is to assemble the parts of it. It takes some time, but it’s worthy.

If you like the project and you want to cut your own, you can just download the pattern in OS Circular Fashion.Afterwards, share with me your results! Also you can follow the project with hashtag #bebluebcn. If you have any doubt about the process you can contact me by email.

References#

They produce bags with sailing fabrics.

There’re many projects that emphasizes this problem of water contamination. One I would like to share with you is called Dystopian Places. It’s aim is to make humans empathize with the species living in the ocean, by how they feel the hipoxia (reduced oxygen).

To address the problem of water hipoxia he created a mask, that once worn, will reduce the amount of oxygen in such a way that will mimic the reality of fishes living under such conditions. The purpose of the mask is for the wearer to imagine what it would be like to be a fish swimming in an area with oxygen deprivation because of water contamination. The main goal of the project is for humans to physically understand, to feel, the issues that environment is facing. The hope is to increase an awareness that holds the potential to trigger a conscious decision to take a step in eradicating the problems at hand.