3. Circular Open Source Fashion¶
What the week looked like¶
Before the global sesion began, i got to present my assignment from last week and it went very well. I really enjoyed working on the laser cutter, which showed in my explorations; and was looking forward to this week's mandate to explore that further as a tool.
Now that my website workflow is sorted and i continue to work on WebIDE, i planned to spend longer on the ideation for this week's task, and not have to worry.
This week i really enjoyed working with the module design. It gave me a chance to bring together some inspiration from my architectural background and the aesthetic coherence through my visual design background.
Takeaways from Global Session¶
Global sesion this week was structured as a 2 part series. The first part with Zoe Romano looked at the various approaches towards Circular Fashion. The second part with Claudia Simonelli dealt with modularity as a tool towards zero waste personalisable garment construction.
Checklist for the week¶
Personal thoughts and Ideas¶
After the session, i penned down key concepts i wanted to take forward for the assignment. The ones i selected were
ZeroWaste : Geometric : Modular : Colours : Interlocking
For the garment, i am looked at the fulfilling the following parameters through my design
versatile : personalisable : unisex : body size inclusive : sculptural
Research & Inspiration¶
India has a vibrant practice of buying fabrics and getting them stiched by local tailors. As someone who gets a fair share of my clothes stiched, i really wanted to look at making a Cape or Khaftan or Poncho. Over the past two years, i have been avidly converting all my new fabrics and old sarees into Khaftans; they are free size, look cool, keep you feeling airy, can be dressed up or down based on the occasion and can cater to different body types as well.
Seeing some familar work of artists & designers in the presentation, i was reminded of works of Issey Miyake, especcially the one where the garment can be draped, layered, made with minimal cuts and most importantly versatile.
These are some of the videos from his collection that inspired me to look a creating a garment that could be
versatile : personalisable : unisex : body size inclusive : sculptural
Closer to home, Indian designer Payal Khandwala has been exploring similar siluhettes like this cape and this poncho
Since the task this week mandates a modular interconncetability, i looked at examples of modularity from the lense of tesselations. With the garment silhuettes i had in mind, i wanted to play with having multiple interconnecting modules rather than a singular unit. For this, i looked for inspiration within Islamic Architectural examples that are famous for their history of intricate tessaltions.
After researching through multiple images, i chose a tiling pattern from this book by Jules Bourgoin; specifically this pattern. The reason i gravitated towards this particular tile pattern was the angular overlaps within the drawing, that ensures a possibility for derriving an interlocking pattern.
Softwares, Tools & Materials¶
SOFTWARES:¶
- Autodesk AutoCAD (for making drawings for lasercutting)
- Adobe Photoshop (for creating test patterns)
- Procreate (for quick digital sketches)
TOOLS:¶
- SIL CO2 Laser cutter
MATERIALS:¶
- 1mm FELT sheets (in various colours)
Design Workflow & Iterations¶
Determine Base Module¶
To begin with, i imported the .PDF of the selected pattern to Procreate and created various layers of coloured iterations of using this design as a base. Once i liked a pattern consisting of shapes that allowed for overlap and interlinking, i took pritnouts. Using the good ol' paper & scissor, i started cutting the shapes i had selected and refining them insttinctively to account for interconnections.
Test Interlinkages¶
I attempted a few iterations, revising the design on the go, keeping in mind the that at the correct scale this would need to have structural strength along with the module not breaking at the slightest tug to the fabric.
After trying modules with 2 blocks and 4 blocks, i like the overal shape and performance of the 4th attempt, with a 3 block module. To begin with, I liked the aesthetic of it along with the direction and placement of slots, which ensured structural stability.
Digitize Module¶
Once the module was selected, i made the mistake of attempting to digitise the .JPEG of the tiling pattern on AutoCAD. After multiple attempts at figuring out the grids and correcting the shapes, i realised that i didn't need to do this.
I restared my digitisation process by directly drawing the individual elements of the 3 blocks, using the geometric formulae and basic logic. During this, ,
Since it was quite difficult to the pieces together when experimenting in paper, i increased the size of the module inorder to accomodate for more space at the edges of the blocks, thus providing for ease of assembly.
After this, the blocks were composed and exported as .DXF to be sent to the Laser cutter.
Test Module¶
To begin with laser cutting, i first made a few attempts to arrive at the perfecr Power to Speed combination on the lasercutter for the Felt sheets. Once this was determined and the pieces were cut, i realised that due to the material stiffness, the slots that i had provided couldn't accomodate for the stiffness and difficulty to connect the pieces.
Revise Module¶
Based on my observation, the part getting inserted was of adequate thickness, but due to the nature of the material, the opening slots for insertion did't work at all. As i was analysing the issues, i simultaneously started making edits to the digital file and created wider & deeper slots. I also reduced a bulk of the material to test how it stood the test of the push and pull.
Once the edits were made, i did a second round of laser cutting to test the feasability of the updated design. This time, the blocks fit in very smoothly and the module worked! However i didn't like how the module looked visually, but the hollowed out design brought more fulidity and flexibility to the pattern.
Finalise Module¶
Originally i had wanted a colour blocked garment with solid shapes and colours. However, because of the rigidity of the material, this approach would not work. And after seeing the flexibility that was possibible with the fabric after laser cutting, i decided to take inspiration from the geometries in the original tiling pattern and create shapes to hollow out the material, while at the same time maintaining structural integrity.
Digital Drawings¶
The reworked modules looked really pretty on-screen. However, when i put all the pieces together to digitally check before preparing Laser cut drawings, i realised that there were parts of the block that i had hollowed out that had an overlapping piece of intercnnection laying over the design. Moreover, there were spaces that were left completely empty. I reworked on the hollow out pattern to ensure that once the blocks come together to form the module, they look aesthetically coherent.
Another detail that needed edits was the cut lines for insertion, which were not aligned in the revised drawing. In the revised draft, i kept a distance of 5mm from the edges for all inserts. Below is what the final blocks look like, and what the module formation, with all blocks put together.
Garment Template¶
Once these edits were made, it was time to check these on a digital mockup of the garment, to test for patttern size and to calculate the number of pieces needed to make this garment.
For this, i downladed a Poncho garment template from the Open Source Creative Commons lisenced Atacac Shareware. The download package comes with an image of the garment (as shown on the website) along with a .PDF and .DXF file!
The .DXF file didn't work on my device so i imported the image to AutiCAD to trace and calculate sizes. The original size of the garment was massive and for the sake of the assignemnt, i reduced it to a workable number. This was follwed by laying the tesselating modules in the template to create a mockup of how the piece will look when all the modules are in place. I also arrived at a basic calculation of how many pieces were needed to build this.
Module Cutting¶
Out of the many colours of Felt that i bought, i narrowed down on these 3 colours: 🟡 💚 🟢 To me, these colours with the finalised pattern bring an earthy aesthetic.
Now that the final module was ready and the colours were selected, i set out to measure individual Felt sheets and create individual compositions for laser cutting. This specific part of measuring and composing on to the sheet or Nesting is something that will help me ensure that there is minimal waste of the material.
I exported these files as .DXF and was ready to begin lasercutting.
During the composition of the final drawings, as i was laying the blocks next to each other, there was waste space between the pieces. While collecting the cut blocks, i also collected the bigger waste pieces and as much of the smaller waste pieces that i could. I will be using these pieces in exercises further down the weeks as well.
In my attempt to ensure Zero Waste for this assignment, i tired to ensure maximum usage of the material and minimal waste created through this creative exercise.
Assembly¶
With a total of ??? pieces cut for the modules and aproximately ???? pieces of waste collected, i was dreading the task of assembly 😰. However, once i stated, i slowly found my rythm. I have assembled this while siting in bed, in the auto on my way to work, while in meetings and ??? . This has been extremely meditative and calming, which wasn't something i felt when i first saw the pile of pieces.
Final Look¶
And here is what the finished garment looks like. As you can see in the documentation below, it can be styled in multiple ways and silhuettes. The shape and size of this is inclusive and extremely personalisable, and anyone can carry it off.
versatile : personalisable : unisex : body size inclusive : sculptural
Learnings¶
To begin with, I am extremely happy with the outcomes for this week and how i managed to finsih all outcomes while also fulfilling the mandate of the keywords i had selected for the project. However, there were a fair share of AHA! and Oh Damn moments.
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I made the drawing on AutoCAD in cm and exported them for lasercutiing. However, the inherent unit of measurement on our Lasercutting machine is in mm. I realised something was off when i luckily checked the digital simulation beforehand. What should have taken a few minutes at the very least, got over in a blink and i realised my mistake.
For future digital work will always work in mm now
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I knew that there would be waste pieces left after lasercutting the blocks. If the project had a slightly longer turnover point, i would have liked to design for another use case with those pieces getting interlinked as well.
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Out of the 6 Felt sheets used, 4 hapepned to be used to the maximum extent. However 2 sheets with the bigger block had a lot more material wastage based on its geometry. If i were to do this again, i would try make smaller blocks with lesser negative space when laid together, in order to have more efficient material usage. I do have the sheet saved and the original drawing, and can use that to recut the remaing material with another design.
Fabrication files¶
Uploaded files are housed on the OSCircularFashion website here