Final Presentations¶

Finals are here!!! LET'S GOOOOOOO

WELCOME TO..¶

BEYOND FEATHERS¶

A little bit of context, State of the Art¶

Through history, humans have used animal feathers for different purposes. Power, Culture, Social Stratum, Royalty, Femininity, etc. With ostrich feathers as the the most sold and desired feather in the market.

The thirst for exotic ornament among fashionable people prompted a global trade in ostrich feathers with South Africa as their first supplier. Bringing us to the current state of the art.

Over the years, couture trends remain the same, creating elegant, unique and impactful designs. That’s why this business still uses animal feathers as the main material in many of its creations.

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Platinum by Demetrios 2019 - Feathers Forever

For the designers the feather has to be perfect, because most of these garments are a tribute to femininity, so the material must communicate symmetry, beauty, lightness and delicacy.

GORGEOUS! But at what cost?¶

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As i said before, most of the brands use animal feathers as the main material of these garments,

Lemarie is the reference destination for designers who find that artificial feathers cannot recreate the effect of the animal ones. In 1987, for example, Lemarie used 5000 birds of paradise’s feathers from her precious reserves in a single dress.

While the more reputable fashion houses insist on getting their materials from antique feather dealer, demand for fine feathers generates a black market trade in protected species like the birds of paradise who, if the latest reports prove accurate, are now said to be on a ‘flight to oblivion’.

So then...¶

In ostrich farms, conducted mainly in South Africa, Florida and in California, the birds were denuded of their feathers at regular intervals. The first feathers were plucked when the bird was a year old. Over three hundred feathers could be ‘harvested’ from a single ostrich in its lifetime.

Similarly all of the ostrich plumes of commerce were really double plumes, made by uniting two of the natural feathers, so as to appear fuller.

But everything says that I am not the only one who has thought about it since a report published by THE KIT in 2019 tells us that Organizations like Responsible Down Standard ensure that certified brands such as Aritzia and H&M use only feathers that are collected or a by-product of food production.

But perhaps with new technology and a little bit of imagination, we’ll see more and more alternatives that capture the same magic.

Prototypes¶

Through this journey, in the experimentation process, my third experiment was to 3D printing feathers with flexible TPU filament, this one was my favorite because it gives me great results. The prototypes are flexible, resistant, light and delicate. That’s why i decided to use this process to develop my main prototype.

To help myself with the post printing process, i decide to create a base module of five feathers that can be sewed with a few stitches. The main material that I use for modules of my garment is a biodegradable flexible filament made out of cornstarch.

For the post printing process, where i have to cut some feathers, meadure the distance, glue them into the based shirt or skirt, and then sew it to make sure these don't fall out of the garment.