journal writing: how-to and then, not

The Ideal:
Drawing from Owain Pedgley, what is on my office wall:

The Ugly Reality:
What the last two pages of my journal looked like before Bad Dogs opened, now more than a year ago:

Analyse that.

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:

clarifying the terminology: research involving (design) practice

After a meeting on Friday, my focus at the moment is the methodology chapter and in particular the issue of rigour in practice-led research. It's not something I'm too concerned about but I do need to articulate very clearly the sources of rigour in my project. Over the weekend I was updating my readings on the area and came across this very helpful paper by Kristina Niedderer and Seymour Roworth-Stokes: 'The role and use of creative practice in research and its contribution to knowledge'. The table on page 10 is particularly helpful in clarifying the terminology, much of which is currently used interchangeably, perhaps erroneously. The timing of reading the paper was somewhat serendipitous as only on Thursday I had a minor epiphany in regards to my project, while reading about someone else's.

I don't know that practice-led is the correct term to describe my project. On Thursday I actually wrote at the beginning of the chapter: "My project: not practice-led research but rather, a project that includes research-led practice". This realisation came about whilst reading about Maarit Mäkelä's project in the book she co-edited with Sara Routarinne: The Art of Research. Research Practices in Art and Design. (The website has the subheading different to the book I'm looking at right now.) The chapters covering various projects, including Mäkelä's, focus mainly on art rather than design, although the closing chapters by Stephen Scrivener and Michael Biggs do bring the book back to design somewhat. Anyway, Mäkelä's project to me reads very much as 'practice-led' but as a result, my project does not. For a start, my project includes an exhaustive (and exhausting) literature survey of garments that waste little or no fabric, both historical and contemporary. As the literature survey both precedes and informs the practice, I'm not sure 'practice-led research' is the correct term for my project - the practice does not lead the research but does contribute to it significantly.

Going back to Table 2 in Niedderer and Roworth-Stokes's paper, and the first category, 'Research Involving Practice', I do identify with the context and purpose. In my project, "practice plays a lead role in the investigative process", and "informs theory building within research to gain new insights, knowledge or understanding". (And this reminds me why it was so easy to embark on a misadventure to the world of Grounded Theory more than two years ago... It made sense, even if inappropriate.)

Next, using objectivity, reliability and validity as the criteria, identifying the sources of rigour in the project should be a breeze. Or so I always (optimistically) believe.

As an unrelated aside, I haven't entertained the thought of designing within the Australian industry for some years now - not much or seriously anyway. Yesterday, a friend asked if could bring in my portfolio to the company she's working for, as there are signs of imminent expansion. I could, I replied, if I had one. The closest equivalent I have is my press book. I had my first look in about three years last night (I should have taken a photo of the dust) and it was almost as if I was reading about someone else. And how things change. Exactly 18 months after this was written, I was applying to do a PhD and got on the road I'm on now. No regrets, of course, but it's strange to even think of myself as a potential designer again. Sure, I am designing as part of the project but it's in my little academic ivory tower, not in the real world where things actually have to sell. Not in the real world where designers have to churn out hundreds of styles every year. Not in the real world where what always seem to ultimately matter, at the expense of everything else, is profit. Anyway, I'm taking the book in; if nothing else, my friend and I can have a giggle at how young I looked. Oh, and I'm still exhausted.

a few good distractions

Then it gets sillier. No comment - I won't pick on this any further.

The Sydney Morning Herald's coverage of RAFW is indexed here. I had grand plans to stay informed but it just couldn't sustain my interest for more than ten minutes. Is that bad? (Under other circumstances it might have but at the moment writing and making are bigger priorities.) And where the hell is Patty Huntington? I'm probably hopelessly out of the loop; who does she write for now? None of the SMH reviews I read were by her.

As she had a sale on (I was meant to advertise and forgot), I bought more fabrics from Jill at KimoYES last week. They arrived yesterday, and there are some true beauties. Photos to come. Maybe. I've got a backlog of stuff to get from the camera to the computer to my journal, of things happening in the studio.

I've reread much of the literature on practice-led research in art and design in the past few weeks; my notes on many texts weren't satisfactory to work with for the methodology chapter. It's a fuzzy picture, but some clarity is starting to emerge. Namely that consensus is scarce in the field. But that's ok. I'm still pondering the common practice of lumping art and design under the same roof but perhaps there is value in trying to see the common elements rather than get stuck on the differences.

I do have a growing list of real topics to blog about, but later in the week is likely. A few good things beckon in the studio.

deep immersion

The past couple of weeks have seen me writing more intensely than at any other point during the project, except for a couple of isolated periods where I was working on the book chapter or one of the conference papers. And it's been great, as nerdy as that sounds. Hard work - incredibly hard work! - but there is also a sense of accomplishment that comes with that hard work. While all the chapters are on their way in one way or another (and how excellent it is to have a chapter outline that is unlikely to change dramatically now), I've been concentrating on the contextual review of the project, or Chapter 2 (Chapter 1 is the Introduction, well on its way, too). Chapter 2 looks something like this (I've left out the lower level subheadings here):

Chapter 2: Designerly Fashion, Fashion Creation, Sustainability and Fabric Waste
2.1 Designerly fashion, fashion creation and fashion design practice
2.2 Fashion design and sustainability, fabric waste
2.3 Zero fabric waste fashion creation

So, the chapter is a contextualisation of the project and I also attempt to define 'designerly fashion' and 'fashion creation' (see Nigel Cross and his usage of 'designerly''). During the project I've discovered that 'fashion' has been defined and discussed by sociologists extensively (Yuniya Kawamura's Fashionology from 2005 is a good start) but rarely has anyone asked fashion designers or other fashion industry practitioners what fashion might mean to them (or that it might be something different in a design context). I find most sociological explanations insufficient (though useful) for an investigation into sustainability and fashion design, hence my attempt at formulating a designerly understanding of fashion. Mieke Leppens in her 2000 PhD thesis actually noted the same problem with the sociological investigations of fashion, and I've since uncovered a series of studies that remedy the situation somewhat.

Sustainability - I don't know what I would have done if Kate Fletcher's book hadn't come out this year. Well, of course I do - I would have been referencing her website extensively. And if you are new to sustainability, be sure to check out lifetimes and 5 ways. These get discussed in the book, too, but the websites are informative as well. As for that last post, I did grossly simplify, in (an emotional) response to a scathing review of a paper I wrote nearly two years ago but only just got the feedback for. (For the record, the other reviewer was very positive overall.) I might post the reviews here later...

So, Chapter 2 is fast nearing completion (pending me getting my hands on the Fairchild book), and the exhibition for the collection is nearing fast. Next in line is Chapter 3, which is very much about the practice-led methodology in the project. I'm not as nervous about the methodology chapter as I might have been some months ago; I think the rationale for the method is getting set up quite well in Chapter 2. As for the collection, there will be some controversial pieces, I think at this point, which I'll blog about closer to the exhibition. The exhibition will not be merely that; I see it as an opportunity to have the work 'audited' by experts from within research as well as practice.

But, back to deep immersion. The unfortunate side effect is that I'm back in a Central Pacific time zone, waking up just before 3am. But, I will finish! (Pep talks to self - first sign of madness?)

synergies: yeohlee teng and andrew hague

During the shows in New York, London, Milan and Paris I was annoyed with style.com for omitting so many worthy designers from their coverage, for whatever reason. With some of the labels they bother to write a runway review for... Anyway, one established designer style.com ignores season after season is Yeohlee Teng, whose approach is beautifully showcased in Yeohlee: Work
 - visually better than in some of the essays, if I may say so. As I've complained before, describing a designer's practice as an artistic and/or art practice can unintentionally keep hidden the nitty-gritties of the practice itself - and I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants to know about it. The book is somewhat vague as to how Teng went about resolving some of her ideas. It's not that the creative facets of practice aren't important - I passionately believe they are, but they shouldn't overwhelm the more mundane, practical aspects of practice. (Actually, I'm not convinced the two should or can be treated separately from each other in a critical account of practice; it's just that much of the literature shies away from the bits that get hands dirty.) And please, let met clarify; I may be critical of certain decisions regarding the scope of the book, but I am very much a fan of Teng, one of the less-waste pioneers. And very jealous of Mark Liu who recently got to meet her. But, without further ado, some images from Teng's latest collection are here. I hope so in any case - after six foreheads had loaded the page froze on my computer.

And here is the beauty of the message I got from Andrew Hague earlier today: a clear, concise description of what he did to arrive at the shirt in Fletcher's book (p. 153 - for copyright reasons I won't post the image here). I am posting Andrew's description here unedited - practice-led researchers every where, sit up and listen:

"The project was given as a class assignment by my instructor, Lynda Grose, and she was so impressed with it that she sent it along to her colleague, Kate.

The idea was germinated years ago when I saw an exhibit by Yeohlee Teng at the museum at FIT, where they had copies of her actual patterns on the wall. Her interest in fabric conservation was admittedly financially motivated, but I guess the idea stuck. I wanted to reassess traditional design protocol in service to "green design," instead of simply replacing one carbon intensive product with one with a smaller eco-footprint, if you will.

So I found an image of a traditional shirt pattern on the web and pulled it into a vector-based platform (Illustrator, but almost any will work). From there, I manipulated the pattern almost arbitrarily to fill out all the holes which would leave wastage. I paid special attention to the armholes, but that's about it. I let the shirt become what it wanted to be. Most importantly, I neither added, nor subtracted pattern pieces, so when I sat down to the sewing machine, I sewed the shirt the way I had been trained as a tailor's apprentice.

The result is a decidedly Kawakubo effect, but the purpose and rationale are what makes it special."

I see similarities in Andrew's approach (for example, the parameters; "I neither added, nor subtracted pattern pieces") to some of my own experiment briefs. One reads as follows:

"Use the sketch and pattern of an existing design, and test various ways of placing the pattern pieces on a particular fabric width. When the least wasteful way of cutting the garment has been discovered, look at the gaps between the pattern pieces (fabric waste) and begin to redesign the garment by incorporating these gaps into it. Use sketching, informed by what is happening on pattern, to explore different possibilities of incorporating the wasted fabric into the design. Modify the patterns until waste has been eliminated. "

Confession time. At this point, 67945 years into my PhD, this is one of very few of the experiments I've yet to do, and for the others there are good logistical reasons for not having done them yet. But, the collection is lacking 'good' jackets (=any I'm happy with) and there is a jacket I did for my label back in 2003 that has much potential; it will most likely provide me with the existing design.

I would like to thank Andrew for sharing, and I dare you to try it out. It's how it can begin. Andrew's account hopefully shows that no-waste can be as creative as you allow it to be. Finally, if you are unfamiliar with Lynda Grose, she's as pioneering and inspiring (I think) as Kate Fletcher.

protocol analysis: fashion design

(Last post today, and probably pre-IFFTI, I promise)

Today I took part in a protocol analysis(*) exercise at uni; they wanted a designer from each of the disciplines (fashion design, visual communications, industrial design and interior design) to work in a real-life design situation and talk through their thinking whilst designing whilst being filmed. Apparently my PhD-designing was real life enough. (And to prove I've completely lost my sense of humour, everything I do now is doctoral. As in doctoral sewing, doctoral answering the phone, doctoral going to the toilet. Think carefully before stepping into the slushy pit that is a PhD.)

It was interesting to be the guinea pig, given the practice-led methodology of my project. There are parallels in what I'm doing during the practice and what I did today (working on a circle shirt, of all things, on camera). Of course I don't talk out loud in my studio - much - but as I'm needing to keep a record of pretty much everything I do, I kind of talk inside my head a lot as I document it all. I do tell myself that most faculties are still intact while I do this, of course, but boy is it noisy in there sometimes. Research, baby. It was also interesting to get someone else's view on my design processes afterwards; one person's (mine) anal retentiveness is another's "methodical approach", it turns out. The video will be used to show undergraduate students design in action and reflection in action. That tablecloth (to be explained later) is sure to come back to haunt me, possibly on YouTube.

(*) Protocol analysis as a method of inquiry isn't anywhere near as boring as it sounds even if a large percentage of the academic papers written about it would put half the universe into a permanent coma.

Practice-led and practice-based research

This research is about fashion design practice, and part of the research will be conducted through practice, but I am not convinced 'practice-led' or 'practice-based' sufficiently describe the project. How I came to the research problem isn't entirely practice-led, either; things that I'd seen and read in books played an equally significant role.

The 'themes' for next year's Nordic Design Research Conference are Inquiries about Design, Inquiries for Design and Inquiries by Design. I think the first and the last reflect what I'm attempting, but the middle fits as well: I do hope that eventually other practitioners will somehow benefit from the research.