These Young Designers Are Embracing Fabric Innovation

Petra Fagerström partnered with Sappi Verve & Ecocell™.

How did CTF challenge you to develop your design language?

Mostly through construction and silhouette. I have a background in bespoke tailoring so I took that approach of craft and tailoring, and tried to find a way of using the fluid jersey I got and the twill - I created a trench cape inspired by a piece from my last collection that was a bomber. Then I made a hoodie with a Dior-like Bar jacket construction, and the main challenge with using these fabrics is that I really wanted to keep the integrity of the fabric, but also not diminish the quality by using fusings or glue or adding any synthetic fibres to the look. So, for example, not using bonding to create the shape of the Bar jacket. I actually used horsehair canvas, pad stitching and very traditional techniques to achieve the shapes.

What are you taking away from this project?

By restriction I was forced to make an all-black look which was something I was quite opposed to, but in the end I think it forced me to think more about the texture and more about the silhouette. Seeing how they could work for me, how I can use these kinds of fabrics and suppliers long term in my business, so not only making a look for this exhibition but actually exploring how I can incorporate these fabrics long term into my practice.

How are you innovating for the future?

I am very interested in tech, and how tech can also be used to help young designers further their design. I think we’re quite scared of how AI can potentially harm what we do and take our jobs, when actually it could also be used to give us more time to design. I’m developing this AI tool together with this Swedish AI company, Substorm, to help with tasks that aren’t generating design ideas, instead helping with admin, or fabric choice or sourcing, so that we can focus a bit more on creativity and design.

Women's History Museum partnered with Circ® x PYRATEX®

How did you approach the project from a Women's History Museum viewpoint?

We've been interested in this idea of currency. Thinking of the woman's body as a form of currency that's been exchanged and exploited throughout time. Because of the prompt and the fabric we're using, also thinking about outdated methods of production, ideas of manufacturing as well, directly about capitalism's link to fashion.

We went off our last, most recent fashion show which was called Dead Currency. We continued some of those themes and methodologies in what we created here. We made a print using a scan of a US bill, and turned it into a print that we gold foil printed with a heat press onto the fabric. We also used repurposed found pennies, which are becoming obsolete in the United States or getting phased out, as well as found casino chips which we used in our last collection.

Since we used a biodegradable material, we were also thinking about the exploitation of nature and the environment. Silvia Federici's idea of like violence against women as a precondition for capitalism. We thought of the garment degrading eventually, because it's biodegradable, and leaving the skeleton of the idea of what it's about containing this moment in history that we're in, which is one of precarity for everybody but also specifically for those working in the fashion industry.

What advantages and challenges came from using your fabric?

I definitely think a main advantage was being able to print the fabric. We didn't get to decide what fabric we would have, so we kind of had to just see what we got and how it printed, and luckily with this fabric it printed really well with the gold foil that we did, especially because it was a black fabric we thought that the gold foil would print really graphically – which it did and then it also draped super well. There's a kind of almost sportswear aspect to the fabric, so we knew we wanted to do something that was a bit sporty, but then the fact that it draped really well meant we wanted to do also something that was glamorous.

The top is putting together this Regency period silhouette with a 1950s style bullet bra - the fabric stretched really well over the boning and kind of imitated stretching a canvas - so it also made sense for the aerodynamic quality of the top from those precarious times in society and culture, but also in fashion and fashion production.

How are you innovating for the future?

To control the methods in which we produce our clothes, so we're not forced to make a tonne of pieces and to make them cheaply because we have to. Our pieces are made locally in New York, we choose high quality fabrics and do things at a small scale at a pace that makes sense for us where we don't have to make sacrifices to quality or sustainability. We have a vintage store and that's the main way that we support ourselves, it takes off pressure from us.

From the beginning we always used a lot of recycled fabrics, antique fabrics and we also used a lot of found objects as well as part of our fashion shows; that's always been a very important part of our ethos and a creative element to our process.

Oscar Ouyang partnered with Eastman Naia™ Renew.

How did you apply your design language to your fabric?

My fabric was half wool and half celluloid. In a way, it's a plain white fabric, which I've been challenged with many years ago at school, like the 'white' projects. But it's really amazing how you can create something [new again] from one fabric.

We really tested all the possibilities for the fabric, different manipulations we could do as I do so much knitwear. Oscar Ouyang is really a knitwear focused brand. So we gave it a Shepherd's kind of look. The idea is, shepherds always carry a sheep around their neck sometimes. It's kind of cute. It's all like, you know, big muscular little man, carrying a little cute sheep. So we stitched and cut the fabric into strips to create this voluminous sheep leg sleeves. The gloves are kind of hoof shaped as well. We dyed the hoof colours as well. And then for the dress, we shaved the pattern off to create a kind of Fair Isle, more traditional pattern. Because Fair Isle is also a big part of the Oscar Ouyang DNA. We do a lot of Fair Isle kind of knits. So really traditional, but also we try to make it really sexy with this fleece fabric.

How are you innovating for the future?

I really want to push my products into a future archive. I like to preserve craftsmanship, like traditional fabric, yarn and wool, but with a modern aesthetic, so when we're creating stuff we reference so many archive pieces.

NUBA partnered with Birla Cellulose.

How did you incorporate your fabric into NUBA?

The challenge was how to actually change the fabric into a colour and a texture that could express my silhouette in the best way possible. Honestly, the fabric was quite a challenge for me. Initially, I got it and was overthinking how to actually work with it, because it was a fabric that I'm not necessarily used to working with. But in the end, I decided to do something that brought it closer to my design language in a way that actually was quite simple to work out. The fabric itself is luckily quite versatile, and I was able to give it structure while using the properties of the fabric that are quite lightweight and have a really good drape to them. I used my design language of combining structure and drapery together in one outfit, that felt quite natural to what I've been doing before.

What other advantages and challenges did you come across?

In terms of its colour and texture, that was the biggest challenge because I tried to bleach it. It doesn’t bleach. I tried to dye it. It doesn't dye with a vibrant colour and it also doesn't dye it to a strong enough colour. I came to the conclusion that I had to print on top of it. It wasn't necessarily the outcome that I wanted. It was still quite dull. So I ended up actually printing about four times. It's purely a black screen printing ink. That I've over-printed. It adds a texture that feels quite industrial, but organic at the same time. It was able to actually mute the fabric, but also add something to the texture of it.

In keeping with this theme of man-made cellulose fibers, I was able to find an external viscose and more blend. So that I was able to bond it to the viscose jersey so that I could keep it lightweight but still have structure against something that's part of my language of structure and fluidity.

How are you innovating for the future?

Well, I think the biggest part of sustainability for the future is not only sustainable fabrics, but also sustainable ways of thinking about culture. I think my outfit and my general way of approaching design is a way to use culture in order to challenge ideas of taste and tradition. So that's one thing. I think another way is of course through the fabrics themselves, introducing more sustainable and biodegradable fabrics into the fashion cycle and into supply chains. The more we use it, the more the industry learns how to integrate it into a system that allows it to scale.

Shan Huq partnered with Lenzing Group.

How did you approach using your fabric?

I actually came up with the design before I received the fabric, I've always wanted to work on this silhouette of a version of the Marilyn Monroe dress, the iconic white dress. When I received the fabric, it was perfect because of this white, fluid jersey.

What advantages and challenges came from using your chosen fabrics?

One big thing would be that in terms of the advantages and challenges coming from this fabric, I really wanted to use sun-ray pleating which is quite a hard thing to do with a jersey fabric so that was a challenge to work with. An advantage was that we were able to make it work in the atelier.

How are you innovating for the future?

I like to use my work as this way into past, present and future.

Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen partnered with CIRCULOSE® x SINOTECOTM.

How did you develop/apply your design language to your chosen fabric/s for CTF?

Circulose is the fibre and Cenotec is the mill that produces the textile. They were all these really soft, beautiful draped jerseys and ribs and I used them to develop these spiralling, stuffed shapes that were representative of the weight and mortality of one's body. Then this beautiful white jersey that was draped over live branches and steel boning to create these flags of surrender. Misshapen crinoline, almost like childbearing hips falling off of one's body, and I chose these designs or they kind of came to me through this reckoning of ones or of my own personal holding of life and death and rebirth within my own body and my reckoning with that as I was working with these textiles over the past few weeks.

What advantages and challenges came from using your chosen fabrics?

The material was really beautiful and helped create these gorgeous drapes through the structures that I was using. The challenge was they're so slinky and durable that it actually became this dialogue that I was having with the fabric of how it wanted to fall and be formed to create the shapes, with this communication of the emotion I was trying to evoke.

How are you innovating for the future?

My whole practice not only works with deadstock, recycled and vintage materials but also focuses on the emotional impact of a garment. It's a proposal for how we can create a tactile, sustainable future but also emotionally sustainable future through clothing and garment making.

LOUTHER partnered with HerMin Textile.

How did you apply your design language to your fabric?

We've done two runway shows now: I started within menswear but we styled them as co-ed, it really shifted our development process where we saw this silhouette that was so bold, so brave, and so strong, being put onto a woman's body. We got the fabric from HerMin and it was a technical outerwear material that would have been so easy to flip into a menswear garment, but we thought of it as part of our forthcoming collection and how we can take it out of the context that it's originally in and put it into a womenswear world and drape because the fabric is so thin.

What challenges came up?

The weave. I can't stress how tightly woven this fabric is. I don't know what technology they put into this that they make this yarn in this extremely thin material that's so tight that you can barely get pins through it. We got it and it is fantastic, it has all these amazing capabilities.

We started with a sketch - I had this idea of this really big voluminous idea. I was like, 'This is so great, let's drape it, let's pin it!' The fabric just wouldn't have it. It just didn't want to work with us, so we had to rethink the way were draping. We draped with tape, so we could shape it because it has a very structured, engineered sort of feel to it. That was amazing because for us that was also pushing us as a design team into something that we haven't done before and actually got our design process to steer into a direction to think differently about the way we're draping, which was incredible.

How are you innovating for the future?

We've been upcycling since the beginning, and I think it will be for the future. You can build a company or a fashion line from the ground up with newly engineered garments that have sustainability in mind, and that's fantastic. I think there's just so much potential in this and in the mindfulness, and the resourcefulness, of these fabrics and the abilities that you can engineer into them.