to re-orient their practice for sustain-ability. In Design Futuring, Fry notes that the advanced technological fix is not necessarily the only solution to the challenges of sustain-ability and suggests that, "there is great deal of design potential in re-conceptualising existing, past and forgotten technologies.”335 In response, the question that framed these investigations was, “What are the existing methods available to fashion design with the potential to extend the currency of fashion garments in use?” The aim being to explore historical methods of garment design and construction with the potential capacity to change both the fit and look of the garment built into their design. The result of the consumer survey (see earlier in this chapter) indicated that a combination of both these qualities (the garment’s suitability to the changing body and its relevance to changing tastes, both personal and societal) is essential to keeping a garment in use. The investigations were undertaken with consideration of whether the same design strategies might address both concerns or possibly require a combination of approaches.
3.7.3.1 RESEARCH THROUGH EXISTING GARMENT PRODUCTION PRACTICES: TEXTS The precedent for the review of historical dressmaking texts is Rissanen’s chapter, “Designing Endurance”, in the volume he edited with Gwilt, Shaping Sustainable Fashion: changing the way we
make and use clothes.336 In this chapter, Rissanen discusses a number of practical design strategies in support of extended garment use, with a focus on zero-waste cutting. Rissanen cites examples of early twentieth century clothing construction manuals in support of his argument that many of the methods associated with contemporary design practices for sustainability in fashion have existed for some time, even centuries. The survey of texts carried out for this study expand on the findings of Rissanen by locating further existing methods of garment design and construction that might be recontextualised for fashion design for sustainability.
A survey of the more popular references for dressmaking in the twentieth century reveals that these texts fall into two categories, instructional texts for tailors and dressmakers, and homemaker manuals.337 To the benefit of this research, the former provide insight into garment design and construction methods with provision for future alteration while the latter contain greater detail on repair and re- modelling. These texts transport the reader to a time of frugal consumption when fabrics are precious resources (particularly in those texts immediately following the rationing of World War II338) and garments are valuable possessions that warrant careful, skilled maintenance. The possibilities for
335. Fry, Design futuring: sustainability, ethics, and new practice., p.77
336. Timo Rissanen, "Designing Endurance," in Shaping Sustainable Fashion: Changing the Way We Make and Use Clothes, ed. Alison Gwilt and Timo Rissanen (Taylor and Francis, 2012).
337. See Appendix 5 for a list of texts reviewed.
338. see for example National Archives, Make do and mend: keeping family and home afloat on war rations : reproductions of official Second
extending the active life of clothing are described in a cheerful tone that implies thriftiness is a virtue and not merely borne of necessity.
One book reviewed is an especially rich resource of methods and approaches to extending the life of a garment, entitled: Practical Home Mending Made Easy, published in 1946, which encourages the reader to “mend for pleasure and economy.”339 This book covers an extensive range of approaches to garment care, mending, making and re-making clothing to ensure maximum lifespan. Strategies include: minimal waste cutting, re-fashioning clothes by replacing worn or out-dated components, recutting new clothes from old, adjustments for size variations, correcting fit through the clever addition or subtraction of fabric, reinforcing areas of potential wear, concealing damage with embellishments and down-cycling worn out garments to other household purposes.340 As a manual of dressmaking techniques written for the novice seeking new skills in mending, there are many aspects of the book that might be recontexualised as a handbook for practicing sustain-able fashion. Many of the lessons are valid for modern clothing, and so too is the book’s format, written as the title proclaims, to be both practical and easy. Although some of the techniques are no longer commonplace (dress shields in blouses), they persist within the recall of older generations, and in the manufacture of very high-quality garments. They are methods that can be employed within existing industrial production processes and within contemporary domestic environments. The chapters titled “Let’s Refashion It”, “Cut Your Coat to Fit Your Cloth”, “Was Tom’s-Now Judy’s”, “Save That Coat” and “One Yard of Fabric to Make A Dress” (Figure 3.7) provide an historical context for the review of contemporary sustainable fashion practices as well as guidance in the approaches adopted for the re-modelling investigations. These are described later in this chapter.
339. Mary Brooks-Picken, Practical Home Mending Made Easy (Watford, Great Britain: Odhams Press Ltd., 1946)., p.1 340. Brooks-Picken, Practical Home Mending Made Easy.
FIGURE 3.7. “ONE YARD OF FABRIC – TO MAKE A DRESS” IN BROOKS-PICKEN, PRACTICAL HOME
MENDING MADE EASY
3.7.3.2 RESEARCH THROUGH EXISTING GARMENT PRODUCTION PRACTICES: GARMENTS
While some of the tailoring techniques detailed in these chapters were known to me prior to this study, the survey of historical texts expanded my knowledge to further methods, suggesting new possibilities for garment design for sustain-ability. Traditionally tailored garments are durably constructed to enable future alterations, with anticipated areas of wear reinforced. While the historical references outlined above described these approaches in-depth, a subsequent analysis of a number of existing garments brought to life the techniques described. For this investigation, a range of men’s tailored and casual trousers was sourced from a charity shop.341 The garments were selected for their use (and variation in use) of the techniques described in the historical texts reviewed. The garments were documented visually before some pieces were deconstructed and reconstructed to experience the mechanisms for alteration provided.
341. My local Rotary store, an old-fashioned suburban charity shop in Flemington, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne, stocks an eclectic array of the neighbourhood’s cast-off clothing and bric-a-brac.
This cycle of practice investigations enriched the findings of the survey of historical texts by providing physical examples of the methods described in the books. Further, the garments sourced were worn garments, some of them clearly decades old, therefore some analysis of the effectiveness of the reinforcements or alterations could be made. Together, the selection of trousers indicated the differences in tailoring methods employed between garment types (casual chinos, suit pants), and between brands (particularly through the different applications of heel tapes in the suit pants). These findings contributed to developing suite of garment design and construction techniques to be reintroduced into contemporary womenswear, complementing the findings of the re-modelling investigations (Chapter 3).
3.7.3.3 SCRIPTING AS A METHOD: EXPLORED THROUGH AN ANALYSIS OF TWO PAIRS OF TROUSERS
In addition to the richness of historical methods of garment design and construction, scripting had emerged through the contextual review as a method of design for behaviour change.342 A comparative analysis of two pairs of trousers examined the concept of scripting through fashion garments and suggested the potential for scripts to activate the garment artefact as an enabler of sustain-able clothing use practices.
The review of men’s tailored pants found that tailoring methods that support long-term use, (by including provisions for alterations and reinforcements of areas of wear) are not only found in high quality, formal garments, but are used also in contemporary casual trousers typical of the mass market. However, the same features are generally not found in comparable womenswear trousers, as the below garment analysis exercise describes. The two photographs in Figures 3.8 and 3.9 show two common construction components used in men’s suit trousers at nearly all levels of the market: a deep centre back seam allowance to facilitate fluctuations in waist measurement and a seat shield to protect the crotch seam intersection from wear caused by friction and sweat.
342. Fry, Design futuring: sustainability, ethics, and new practice; Jelsma, "Designing ‘moralized’ products."; McKenzie-Mohr, Fostering
sustainable behavior ; an introduction to community-based social marketing; Abbey Mellick Lopes and Alison Gill, "Reorienting sustainable
design: practice theory and aspirational conceptions of use," Journal of Design Research 13, no. 3 (2015), https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1504/JDR.2015.071456
FIGURE 3.8. CONTEMPORARY MEN’S TROUSERS WITH WIDE BACK SEAM TO
FACILITATE ALTERATIONS.
FIGURE 3.9. CONTEMPORARY MEN'S TROUSERS WITH GENEROUS SEAT SHIELD TO
PROTECT AGAINST WEAR.
Typical, mass-market suit trousers such as these might be worn almost daily to work until they wear out.343 They are performative but also symbolic in function, assimilating the wearer into the office environment in which they are worn. Office dress codes for men change slowly,344 thus the trousers have a long-life expectancy and as such are durably made.
FIGURE 3.10. CONTEMPORARY WOMEN’S TROUSERS SHOWING BORROWED CONSTRUCTION ELEMENTS FROM MENSWEAR.
FIGURE 3.11. CONTEMPORARY WOMEN’S TROUSERS SHOWING WITH CENTRE BACK
SEAM THAT CANNOT BE LET OUT. THE SEAT IS NOT SHIELDED AGAINST WEAR.
The fabric comprises wool blended with polyamide for feel, strength and wrinkle resistance, areas of potential wear are shielded (the seat in this case though sometimes also the thighs and knees), part lining contributes stability and comfort and facility for alteration in waist size is provided. Contrasted
343. These trousers have been discarded following a substantial tear to the knee.
against a pair of typical mass-market women’s work trousers (Figures 3.10 and 3.11), the difference in design intention becomes apparent. While aspects of men’s tailoring have been borrowed for a neat interior finish (extended fly, binding to finish edges), the same design for durability features are lacking. Despite the conservative straight leg cut and office-appropriate grey wool fabric, long-term wear is not considered in the construction of the trousers: no alterations are allowed for and areas of wear are not protected. As well as prohibiting changes that wearers may need to make to the trousers over time, by not providing mechanisms for alterations in women’s trousers, the garment communicates that women’s trousers are not to be altered, instead discarded and replaced.
The capacity for artefacts to steer their use in particular ways is known as scripting.345 Scripting describes the way in which an artefact can encourage users to adopt specific behaviours by enabling some actions while constraining others.346 In the example of the women’s trousers above, the possibilities for alteration are constrained by the construction methods used, which steers the wearer to replace rather than alter the trousers when they no longer fit. Instead, had the women’s trousers been designed and constructed using methods that facilitate future re-modelling, then those components by virtue of being visible within the garment, might well prompt the decision to alter in preference to discard. Importantly, scripting presents a means for both the garment and the wearer to share responsibility for sustain-ability: the garment in need of repair has the capacity to be repaired and thus suggests to the wearer to repair it.
However, Jelsma makes the point that while scripting offers means of directing behaviour, it cannot explicitly dictate that behaviour and it must be acknowledged that users will find a way around the script if they want to.347 In the context of clothing-fashion, this means that garments with provision for alterations may not be altered when they no longer fit. It may be that the wearer does not have the required garment literacy to recognise that deep seam allowances afford alteration (and therefore they are unlikely to possess the skill to make the alteration) or it may be more convenient to discard and replace the garment. Thus, garments may be scripted with the potential for a long lifetime, but there is no way to ensure those practices are taken up. That garments may fall from favour remains to be addressed. It is unrealistic to expect one person to wear the same garments until they fall apart. Could scripting also encourage sustain-able behaviours of garment discard?
Fry contends that “the agency of design objects […] is seriously undertheorized by a great deal of the sustainable consumption discourse.”348 This appears to be especially true of the fashion sector, where strategies for sustainable fashion design have focused on product development over practices of use (see Chapter 2). Garment prototypes produced in this study address this by considering how garment mechanisms that facilitate re-modelling, might additionally steer wearers to undertake the actions of
345. Chapman, Emotionally durable design: objects, experiences and empathy; Fuad-Luke, Design Activism Beautiful Strangeness for a
Sustainable World; Jelsma, "Designing ‘moralized’ products."
346. Jelsma, "Designing ‘moralized’ products.", p.223 347. Jelsma, "Designing ‘moralized’ products.", p.223-224
348. Fry, Design futuring: sustainability, ethics, and new practice., p.193,
See also Ida Nilstad; Boks Pettersen, Casper; Tukker, Arnold, "Framing the role of design in transformation of consumption practices: beyond the designer–product–user triad," International journal of technology management: IJTM 63, no. 1, (1.1) (2013), p.98
alteration instead of discard.349 The types of actions that might be fostered are investigated in a further series of replication exercises, discussed below.