interesting report

An interesting research report commissioned by Defra from Nottingham Trent University and Sheffield Hallam University is available for download from here. I have only managed a brief glance through it as yet, but in particular, the section on repair seems like a fascinating read.

busy busy busy

The short of it: I spent January writing, started the job at the start of February, writing stopped. It's about to start again this week; over the weekend I read much of what I'd written, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd feared.

As well as teaching, I've been busy (an understatement) with an exciting project, more on which later. But there is a little bit about it here.

No promises about whether this blog will ever get back to speed again (I'd like it to) but here are a few lines, courtesy of Zoe, that gave me a laugh. And that probably tells us that doing a PhD is not so good for one's sense of humour.

Q: What is your ontological position in regards to your research?
A: Um, I can't afford to go to the gynecologist at the moment...

if only it were a joke

Inexplicably Conservapedia, "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia", has an entry titled "Fashion industry values", clearly written by a passionate but misguided (understatement of 2008?) teenager. On the one hand, it has had me in hysterics, on the other, it makes me cranky. I probably shouldn't give it another thought.

The entry on dinosaurs is worth a read, too. The thing I have trouble with in regards to all these (presumably land) animals squishing on board Noah's ark is geography (and in case you had trouble with that leap from dinosaurs to Noah, read the entry on dinosaurs). Admittedly I haven't read the Bible on this, but was the flood global? And how much of a sea level rise are we talking here? Because if it was substantial, how the hell did them potoroos from Australia and vicuñas from South America cross oceans to get to the Middle East? And how come the two T-Rex didn't gobble them up? I tried to find out on Conservapedia, only to find in one entry that we all "must be" Noah's descendants, and in another that a whole heap of other folks made it, too. I know which level of inbreeding I'm more comfortable with...

This entry wouldn't be complete without a message from Mrs Betty Bowers, America's best Christian; message that is as informative as any entry on Conservapedia. Enjoy:

still 'ere

Just a quick note to pull this blog from the depths of obscurity (hell, I've even forgotten how to ping at Technorati, not that I know what pinging means) and to thank Sandra, Sam, Lynda and Holly for the emails, and Mike for the comment (some time ago, I know). To possible lurkers, I am alive, lucid even.

I just read the last post. Deary me. If Mr Kane ever visits this blog (ha!), let it be known that I am a fan of his work but not the three looks I picked on. And I really didn't mean to turn this blog into a semi-permanent Kane-hate site. Come February, or whenever it is that these women are made to walk funny again, I will make up for it, promise.

I also read that August was cursed and September was blessed. Well, October was cursed in a way that made August seem like month in Club Med if one is into one of those. I'm not, even if the trip to Finland had a definite theme running through it. This has been the worst year of my life to date. Period. All thanks to October. And I shall leave it that.

In coming weeks this blog will return to form (if it ever had any) - so many exciting news, so many exciting people that have contacted me. I will quickly mention Sam Formo, who, like Andrew Hague*, has under the guidance of Lynda Grose created something quite beautiful that deserves a blog post of its own. Soon, hopefully; I just don't want to exclude Sam from certain possibilities by blogging about the work just yet.

*Yes, I have turned into one of those academiacs who refer to self endlessly. And talk. Andrew actually has a fantastic website of his own.

So here we are, another 5000 years into my unfinished PhD, another year nearly over. But the writing is picking up speed and I sort of dare to be optimistic again. (A word I forgot in October.) The thesis is starting to have balls and they are meaty!

On the likely off-chance this is my last post for the year, happy holidays, thank you, and bring on 2009! (And let's never mention 2008 again, ok?)

bulk (or hips full of fashion)

As a brief respite from writing writing writing, I popped over at style.com to ogle at whatever we're meant to believe is what "women will be wearing" in the northern spring next year. Christopher Kane caught my eye, for better and for worse. This is how big he made two of his models' hips look:
Flaps. Jessica Stam may not be tallest model on the block (and this is good - I'm all for diversity of all kinds - and she may well have the sexiest walk out there); or should that be blocks? Even with those phonebook soles this makes her look 4'4. And as tragic as it may be, I now look at everything in terms of wastage; the entire collection is a nightmare in that respect. But, when Kane works the circles in sheer, the results are much more exciting:


Even this works works for me:

For this particular skirt, I think the inspiration was the reproductive organs of women AND men (look closely and try and convince me otherwise). On the other hand, I wasn't nearly as taken with Kane's use of marabou or whatever fluff edges this:

It has the sophistication of a Mardi Gras outfit cobbled together in the hour before the parade but at least the shoes match, I guess.

But, going back to the dinosauresque (bugger off, spell check) cut-outs, they remind me of Zandra Rhodes' Dinosaur Coat from 1971, in technique if not in look:


As for the writing, it's going well-ish. Admittedly the fear is building; as much as I pretend to ignore the elephant in the room (or on the screen, rather), questioning and challenging how we view and teach fashion design and patternmaking is a frightening affair.

In other exciting news, as of February 2009 I will be employed full-time. The interview, it turns out, went very well. And there are other exciting things in the pipeline, too. Cursed as August may have been, September has been blessed.

[NB: I just checked; Jessica Stam apparently is 5'10 so not as short as I thought. And according to this hilarious piece, she is known for "her trademark eyes" and "personality". I think she should sue whoever wrote the entry.]

"zero waste designers"

From White Apricot, by Laurel House.

Great to see this written about but once again, the pioneering works of Zandra Rhodes, Yeohlee Teng or Julian Roberts do not get mentioned. This amnesia by fashion writers* is a continuing concern; there is so much to learn from all three. (In a similar fashion, the current Australian issue of Marie Claire is "the green issue" which probably means that they've now ticked that box and who knows what next month brings. I hope, but not much.) Furthermore, the seminal Cut My Coteby Dorothy Burnham is once again left out. Reading it was one of those moving fashion moments for me, kind of like seeing the books by Janet Arnold for the first time way back in 1994.

On Roberts and his Subtraction Cutting Tour, the dates and places are listed here. To be on the other hemisphere...

Interview less than two hours away. My toes need liberating and a thinner neck would be good, too.

*If the author of that article reads this, rest assured this is not intended as an attack on you. Rather, it's an outburst of accumulated frustration about the fact that most 'green' fashion journalism has inherited some undesirable aspects of traditional fashion journalism unnecessarily. I do acknowledge that we are all here to learn but I do get at times frustrated at the pace of that learning. Apologies for any offense caused.

limits

One of the comments that mainly other fashion designers have made over the years about fabric waste elimination through design is, 'Isn't it very limiting for design?' I won't give my view on that just yet (but of course I have one), but the statement itself is something I can't back up with literature - there is virtually no literature (except maybe things I've written but I have done no research into other designers' perceptions of this kind of designing and making).

So, even if you're not a fashion designer or patternmaker (evidently to many the two are completely separate things), I'd love to hear your views on this - whether or not you think designing without fabric waste is limiting to design. There is no right or wrong answer here so no stress. I may use your comments in the thesis, without permission but anonymously. Tough titties.

as i prepare for my first real job interview in seven years...

...I am also writing up findings from my project. I've drawn a diagram that looks benign enough - for a moment even I thought, 'Is that it?', after four years* - but when you really start thinking about it, it completely challenges what we conventionally perceive fashion design and patternmaking to be. Mostly patternmaking, though. But enough of that for now - no, I won't post the diagram and no, I won't elaborate just yet. Having seen others present my thoughts and ideas as their own a lot this year, I don't feel safe sharing just yet. Once the thesis is in and all avenues for publication have been exhausted, I will share as much as I can. But here is something to think about; what we say about how we teach patternmaking at UTS:

In first semester first year:

"This subject introduces students to the basic technical skills essential to begin interpreting design into a three dimensional form. Students participate in workshops that incorporate flat pattern-making and garment construction where they learn the various techniques, finishes and specifications required to generate fashion design and concepts into realised outcomes."

In second semester first year:

"This subject aims to further develop understanding and technical abilities in flat pattern making and garment construction. This allows students to gain a critical understanding of block construction and the possibilities of producing more complex design solutions through pattern development. The content preempts the design subject in the following semester."

As for those exhibition photos, soon I hope. I don't have any problem posting them, and it is my full intention to share all the patterns here, too, but I do need to clear a few things up before then. No insecurities as far as plagiarism goes; all the garments have too much of my handwriting to be of much use to any creatively challenged company out there, and like one of the posters in the exhibition stated, I'm more than happy for anyone to copy as long as they waste as little fabric as me in the process. On the posters, I thought they made rather clear what my project was about so I was somewhat baffled when someone commented on my exhibition "of trims and notions" (buttons, zips, etc). Please. When I informed the person that fabric waste elimination through design has been my topic of inquiry for the past four years, the person doubted this was even possible. Yes, the walls were covered in no-waste patterns and yes, the person visited that space. Ok, like this:

For the record, the bit of pattern is from a square-cut pair of pants, not unlike Thayaht's tuta:

(Thayaht's tuta from Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto)

But in principle only - I'd like to think I was a little more creative when it came to some of the leg shapes (seven different versions, of which I used three in the final garments). And I couldn't get the fit how I wanted with a triangular gusset, hence the curves in it. But more on that later.

After August 2008 turned out to be the crappiest month ever, here's hoping for a fantastic September and rest of the year. And fingers crossed for Kim who is likely to be released from hospital next Tuesday; by then she'll have been there for more than five weeks.

*Yep, four years since I put my PhD application in. And unlike some, my topic has not changed from what is at the top of this page. It's a long time to think about one thing.

i like my style and wordle

It's highly narcisistic and a huge procrastination-enabler, but I can't stop obsessing about ilikemystyle.net

My favourites include MKNYC, Peterkempe and koeque.

Totally addictive.

And thanks to Zoe, another time-waster: Wordle. Here is my blog as a word cloud:

is this a test?

(Off-topic and too personal but it's my blog so there)

I wrote this in an email to a friend today:

"And being on the edge of a breakdown of some flavour or another doesn't help in that respect, either. Fortunately I've yet to flush my underpants, something a friend of a friend did at a late stage of her PhD; she realised her mistake just as the panties disappeared from view. But it can't be far off for me, either. Once recently I put the coffee grounds in the cup rather than the coffee maker, and stared at it all for nearly a minute knowing something was wrong but couldn't work out what. "

Maybe it's selfish, but when at the final stages of a PhD, one does not expect to have to deal with a friend's near-fatal accident and recovery that will take months, possibly years (but that she will recover is a small, happy miracle that we didn't dare dream of just over a week ago), and then, the death yesterday of another friend from advanced, inoperable, terminal cancer that even she didn't know she had less than three weeks ago, when I saw her on the day of the opening (and was too busy to talk to as she came early to say she couldn't make the opening as she was not feeling well). The exhibition comes down on Friday and I can't wait, simply because I associate most of its duration with so much sadness it's almost suffocating. The past fortnight has felt like some cruel endurance test thrown at my friends and me by the universe.

Pat: love'n'quacks - I miss you so much already and so do the ducks of this world. Thank you for letting me into yours.

(It seems banal to even mention it now but in reference to an earlier goal, I shaved off nine minutes from my time last year in City2Surf. I didn't quite meet my fund-raising goal but $900+ is still pretty damn good, don't you think? Thank you, everyone!)

survivor

So, I've survived my first ever exhibition. I will post some photos within the next week or two, and am happy to report that the response was quite positive on the night. More importantly, having made the garments, I've got an entirely new sense of this kind of making. It's empowering: I now know I can design everything from now on like this.

A number of people (including many women) on the night asked as to whether I'd be selling the work. I will, I think, produce on a made-to-order and -measure basis, but not until the thesis is out of the way. Being a winter collection, I think February would be an appropriate time to begin taking orders. Some further thinking and planning is required in this respect but if you are interested, shoot me an email. As for getting into wholesale, I'm not interested, at least not for now. Been there, done that, got burned, etc. And I think made-to-order discourages impulse buying, something we are all sometimes prone to. Having to fork out cash for something you won't see for some weeks hopefully makes you think about whether you actually need it a bit more. I only want to make and sell something if the wearer absolutely loves it, and will keep loving and wearing it for a considerable period of time.

Now for the five kilos I lost in two weeks...

bad dogs: exhibition invite

exhibition!

The date of my exhibition opening will be Thursday July 31. Put it in your diary. I have. I won't get into how that makes me feel (except to say it's not all bad). I do hope to see you there.

The City2Surf fundraising has got off to a really good start. Thank you everyone!

turtle run

The project is keeping me from posting, and this is even more off-topic than usual, but definitely worth a post.

August 10 will see my fourth City2Surf, a 14 km run from the city to Bondi Beach. This year I'm doing two things differently: I'll start training before August (I've already started) and I'll be running for charity. The Australian Conservation Foundation is my charity of choice, and perhaps unrealistically, I'm hoping to raise $100 for every painful but fun kilometre. You can donate at my Everyday Hero (not my choice of name) page here; please do. The Mary River Turtle is just one of the many species benefiting from the work the ACF does, and who could say no to a turtle with this haircut:

(Photo: Chris Van Wyk)

Other aim: to cut 2 minutes from my time last year. I was that much over from qualifying for the fastest start group this year: peeps who finished in 75 minutes or less last year. I spent longer in the portaloo queue along the way so that's one thing to avoid. Quite possibly I was the only male not to use the large trees in Rose Bay, but let's see...

But, please donate. The turtles won't thank you but I will. And do consider walking or running on the day. If you'd told me five years ago I'd be describing a run as fun, I'd have laughed. But it is.

on plastic bottles and water

Operation Migration's blog is part of my daily routine. A May 24 entry is a reprint of an article by Dr David Suzuki and Dr Faisal Moola:

The water that comes out of most city taps in Canada is pretty clean. Yet many people prefer to spend money on bottled water, believing that it is somehow safer. Now we’re learning that the stuff in plastic water bottles may be more harmful than anything in our tap water.

'Bisphenol A' is just one chemical that’s been in the news recently – and in many plastic bottles. This compound mimics estrogens (human female hormones) and has been linked to breast and ovarian cancers and childhood developmental problems. It is found in clear, hard polycarbonate plastic commonly used in household and commercial water coolers and some reusable bottles, and it’s just one potentially harmful substance associated with plastic containers.

The presence of chemicals isn’t the only reason we should try to wean ourselves from the bottle, though. For one thing, bottled water is expensive, costing more than a comparable amount of gasoline.

Unlike most nations on Earth, Canada has vast quantities of fresh water. Have we so polluted our water that we feel compelled to pay a lot for it? And from beginning to end (and for plastics, that end is a long time away), plastic bottles contribute to environmental problems.

To start, the manufacturing process is a factor in global warming and depletion of energy resources. It takes close to 17 million barrels of oil to produce the 30 billion water bottles that U.S. citizens go through every year. Or, as the National Geographic website illustrates it: "Imagine a water bottle filled a quarter of the way up with oil. That’s about how much oil was needed to produce the bottle."

It also takes more water to produce a bottle than the bottle itself will hold. Canadians consume more than two billion litres of bottled water a year, and globally, we consume about 50 billion US gallons a year. Unfortunately, most of those bottles – more than 85 per cent, in fact – get tossed into the trash rather than the recycling bin.

The pollution from plastics affects our air, land, and water. Many plastic bottles end up in landfills or get incinerated, and burning plastic releases toxic chemicals into the air. Plastic that stays on land or that is buried can take hundreds of years to break down, and even then, it doesn’t completely biodegrade.

One of the most disturbing things is what happens to plastic that ends up in the oceans – which is about 10 per cent of all plastic produced, according to Greenpeace. About 550 miles off the coast of California, a massive, expanding island of plastic debris 100 feet deep and bigger than the province of Quebec, swirls in what is known as the North Pacific Gyre. In a recent column for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s website, writer Heather Mallick described it as "a hideous chyme [semi-fluid mass] stretching and pulsing in the sea like an underwater gob of spiky phlegm."

Plastic doesn’t biodegrade; rather, it photodegrades, which means that, under sunlight, it just keeps breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces. The tiniest bits of plastic, called nurdles, enter the food chain when they are eaten by marine animals and birds. Nurdles also soak up toxins, adding to the poisons consumed by animals and every creature up the food chain. More than a million birds and marine animals die every year from eating plastic waste or from becoming entangled in plastics.

If the environmental damage caused by plastic bottles or the existence of potentially toxic chemicals in the bottles isn't enough to make you avoid them, how about some reasons that hit closer to home?

First there’s the fact that many bottlers get their water from municipal supplies. Coca Cola filters and bottles water from municipal sources in Calgary, Alberta and Brampton, Ontario for its Dasani brand. Pepsi's Aquafina comes mostly from Vancouver, British Columbia and Mississauga, Ontario. That's right: they're taking your tap water and selling it back to you at a markup that can be as high as 3,000 times the price you pay for it through your taxes.

There's also a danger that governments may use the growing reliance on bottled water as an excuse to avoid their responsibility to ensure we have access to safe drinking water. The federal government must address any existing concerns about drinking-water quality with enforceable standards designed to protect human health.

If you're worried about chlorine in your drinking water, put it in a pitcher and let it stand overnight to allow the chlorine to evaporate – or consider buying a carbon activated filter for your tap. To carry water with you, fill up your stainless steel or glass bottle from the tap, and enjoy.

Water is a precious resource that belongs to all of us. Let’s not take it for granted. And let’s not put it in plastic.

Reprinted from “Science Matters” a column by Dr. David Suzuki, PhD and Dr. Faisal Moola.

Dr. David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author, and chair of the David Suzuki Foundation which he founded. He is Companion to the Order of Canada and a recipient of UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for science, the United Nations Environment Program medal, and Global 500. Dr. Suzuki is Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and holds 22 honorary degrees from universities around the world. He is familiar to television audiences as host of the long-running CBC television program 'The Nature of Things', and to radio audiences as the original host of CBC Radio's Quirks and Quarks, as well as the acclaimed series It's a Matter of Survival, and From Naked Ape to Superspecies. His written work includes more than 43 books.

Dr. Faisal Moola is the Director of Science at the David Suzuki Foundation. He is a practicing scientist and has published widely in scientific journals on many topics in the areas of wildlife biology, conservation, and environmental policy. He has conducted research in some of Canada’s most significant wilderness areas, such as the great northern Boreal Forest, the old-growth rainforests of British Columbia, and the Acadian woodlands of Atlantic Canada. He has also been a university lecturer.

I'd heard of the floating mass of plastic in the Pacific before, and understand it's not the only one of its kind, either. The BBC has reported on the risks posed by invisible, broken down bits of plastic in oceans for a few years now.

it's here!

I met Janet Hethorn nearly three years ago in Denmark, where she asked me if I'd be interested in contributing a chapter to a book she was planning with an associate, Connie Ulasewicz. It was around this time last year that the final drafts went in. Waiting for me at my desk today:


(Finally, an excuse to use the built-in webcam at work. The book is available here.)

feel my pain

This is how I'm feeling about the literature on practice-led research in design at the moment:


And to describe how my methodology chapter is coming along:

Katherine Hamnett sample sale

From today through the weekend. The email directed to her website and HerSpace for more details but I couldn't find any, so here they are:

Dates: 15 - 18th May 2008
Times: Thursday 15th 6-9pm Saturday 17th 11am-7pm
Friday 16th 11am-8pm Sunday 18th 11am-5pm

Entrance: £1 - includes prize draw

Venue: The Boiler House (Near 93 Feet East)
Old Truman Brewery
Brick Lane
Whitechapel
London E1

polyester recycling and plastic bottles

Before I got a permanent bottle for water, I was averaging buying one or two bottles of water a month. It wasn't too bad considering I drink between one and three litres a day, depending if it's a gym day. I bought a water filter last year which made tap water heaps more drinkable. Recycling is all well and good but when you think about the non-renewable raw material and the amount of energy that goes into one plastic bottle, for it to contain half or so a litre of water for not very long, well, it's just not a very efficient use of a very durable material, is it? So, I tried to make the most of each bottle that I bought. But no more. Mine is aluminium, and I wash it once a day - by hand. I do have a dishwasher but hardly ever use it. Earlier, another council in Sydney announced they'll ban bottled water to reduce waste. Of course there was a reaction from the bottled water industry, one that didn't acknowledge the problematic nature of recycling.

From Ecotextile News, more worrying news about the issue. Apparently the demand for fabrics made from recycled bottles is so high now that some manufacturers of recycled polyester textiles have resorted to buying new, unused bottles directly from bottle manufacturers. As the article points out, this has implications for companies using these textiles that don't have full knowledge of their supply chains. It probably is easier to keep things transparent the shorter those chains are.

On a lighter note, if you're still not convinced that the era of the plastic bottle is coming to a close (like mobile phones, we didn't carry water bottles in the eighties), this (#76) might help.

misc.

Another "eco-fashion" blog and I can't not link, nor shut up about it: "Evergreen Effect". I get immediately suspicious now when I see a plant motif at the top of the page. And with good reason:

"I wouldn’t want to be caught alive sporting the same outfit within a month."
"So to satisfy my curiosity, I launched a web search on eco-fashion. After a couple of hours of surfing the Internet, I’ve actually placed a number of orders on the various shopping web sites that market such products. I haven’t received the package yet, but I have high hopes about it."

I don't know; maybe it's meant to be a joke and I'm not getting it - the writing really is that silly and uninformed, and every cliche is recycled (excuse the pun) ad nauseam. Mind you, in the above post, the anonymous author admits to hearing about "eco-fashion" "a couple of weeks ago" but still, missing the point that badly... I know I shouldn't care, but I do.

An exhibition you should go and see if in Sydney:
I did, and there was much beauty to enjoy.

From New Zealand, Untouched World, who now also have a UK site. They offer clothes rather than fashion, sort of like Patagonia and Kathmandu's enact®. I got the catalogue for the latter yesterday and was impressed that most of the zips and buttons use reclaimed materials. Or perhaps rather, I was impressed that they thought to mention that in the catalogue, as well as be clear which styles didn't have those components.

A promising-looking blog for all things DIY: DIY City Blog. The most recent post when I visited was on Katharina Ludwig; her intentionally temporary jewellery makes some pretty strong statements about where we are at, don't you think? Ditto her ice jewellery. Oh, and the organ bottles - they remind me that I finally got a permanent water bottle, an aluminium one from Kathmandu, saying goodbye to plastic bottles for good yesterday.

Oh, and my fabrics, lace and threads arrived yesterday from NearSea Naturals. I got two different colour-grown cotton ginghams, two organic cotton laces (the manufacturer is Eurolaces and an Australian company, Ecoyarns, also stocks them) and organic cotton sewing threads. I've worked out a plan as far as sewing threads are concerned for the collection and will blog about it shortly. Perhaps not the most exciting topic but needs to be done. Like fusible interlinings. Anyway, I'm very pleased with everything and after a go with the threads on my overlocker, I happily report no problems whatsoever.

Finally, Mike at Cultures In Between has the new site up and running. Go and visit.