Prompt: Whether you started from a shirt, a trouser, or a jacket, you’ve stripped these staples of their familiarity. Now that you’ve broken down the familiar garment, diminishing it to its most basic parts, you can see it in a whole new light. Our next step is to reconstruct the pieces into a newly repurposed fashion item. 

Consider how the segmented parts can be used to their advantage. For example, a former zipper strip can now be used to connect multiple sheets of fabric that can be attached and detached to serve different purposes. The top of a hoodie may be stitched together with a belt strap to become a convertible shoulder bag. 

Materials: Additional items you will need for this part of the exercise include sewing supplies, measuring tape or ruler, fabric pins or safety pins. Optional (recommended) items include fabric chalk and interfacing.

Warm Up: Before you begin, create 3 different sketches for how you will reconstruct your garment pieces. For one of the three designs, incorporate a standard or custom fashion croquis sketch to indicate how the item will be worn. 

Tips for reconstructing:

• Find a way to drape or use a dress form to lay out the pieces and simply pin the areas where you plan to sew. Take a look at these examples. 
• Facings or bindings can be made from other fabrics or garments if you do not have enough fabric from the original garment.
• Consider ruffles and other details to hide stains, patch up areas. 
• Experiment with different types of stitches. 

Take a look at the Resources tab for more useful tips.

Introduction

In the world of fashion, “one day you’re in, and the next, you’re out!”* This applies not only to designers, but speaks to the very nature of fast fashion. Clothing flies through our wardrobes at an alarming rate, contributing significantly to the environmental problems facing our planet. According to the UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion, the fashion industry is responsible for: 8-10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, 20% of industrial wastewater pollution worldwide, and $500 billion of lost value each year due to clothing underutilisation and lack of recycling. 

The statistics are scary, but what we wear remains a key mode of self expression.  Provocative, unexpected, and cutting edge, fashion also has the capacity to be mission driven and declarative in addition to being on trend and aesthetically focused.  Mainstream brands are just beginning to scratch the surface of addressing sustainability through clothing. 

In this Discovery Course, we will look to the louder, uninhibited, and controversial medium of Street Art as inspiration for wearables that speak to the issues of sustainability in fashion. Using research methods including sketching, collage, and mark making, you will create wearable concepts that express your own personal narrative on fashion and sustainability. To realise your ideas we will also look at basic sewing and fashion techniques which are easy to master and can be taken in your own creative direction. You will finish the course with a robust fashion sketchbook that shows a detailed journey of your creative process. Design, style and make it!

*thanks, Heidi Klum

Focus Skills/Subjects/Technologies:

   Fashion

 Design

  Social Sciences

  Pattern Making

  Illustration

  Sketching

  Storytelling

UN Sustainable Development Goals:

  Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

  Goal 13: Climate Action

Endorsed by:

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According to the UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion, the fashion industry is responsible for: 8-10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, 20% of industrial wastewater pollution worldwide, and $500 billion of lost value each year due to clothing underutilisation and lack of recycling.

In this Discovery Course, we will look to the louder, uninhibited, and controversial medium of Street Art as inspiration for wearables that speak to the issues of sustainability in fashion. Using research methods including sketching, collage, and mark making, you will create wearable concepts that express your own personal narrative on fashion and sustainability.

Time Commitment 

This Discovery Course will take place over five weeks, including a pre-studio activity before the course begins. All student participants should be prepared to commit 4-6 hours each week over the five week time period. Each week, you will meet synchronously with your instructor for 1 hour, and you will work independently for the other 3-5 hours each week.

Schedule 

Introduction Exercise
DECONSTRUCT

for this exercise, you will take an existing garment in your home (preferably one that you won't miss too much!) This garment should be one that has more construction to it meaning it is made up of patterns or built from a template in some way. Typically blouses or trousers are more constructed pieces!
We will then carefully take it apart or deconstruct it - the purpose of this is to understand more in-depth how some garment pieces are built up and in doing so we can have a better understanding as novice designers how to construct our own. It will also help up get into the conceptual part of the studio for part II of this assignment which will be to reconstruct this same piece from the cut-offs. 

What you'll need:

• Fabric Scissors
• Seam Rippers
• A Trouser or Blouse (Constructed Garment) 

ORDER:

Step 1: Remove Collar. Cut the collar off of the shirt and discard it. ...

Step 2: Remove Plackets. Cutt off and discard both sides of the front placket. ...

Step 3: Remove Buttons. ...

Step 4: Remove Cuffs. ...

Step 5: Sleeves. ...

Step 6: Front of Shirt. ...

Step 7: Back of Shirt. ...

Step 8: Fold Pieces.

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