Monday, August 17, 2009

A wardrobe staple reimagined...


After a quiet weekend enjoying the sunshine by the coast I have spent the morning procrastinating slightly by catching up on all of the things I've missed on the t'internet. After a few quick scans of my favourite sites and blogs I was stopped in my tracks by a post on Fashion156's daily blog. Images from the T-Shirt Issue project made me do a double take at the screen as I saw one of my favourite wardrobe staples transformed in to art. For the T-Shirt Issue, Berlin based Linda Kostowski and Mashallah Design experimented and manipulated grey jersey sweatshirts to create three digital portraits.

I am a devoted, borderline obsessive, disciple of grey jersey but I have never seen this comfortable, safe and reliable staple used in such an architectural and imagination capturing way before. Regular readers will know that I am a huge fan of Aitor Throup and this project certainly bears some resemblance to his design process. Here, three people are portrayed digitally by scanning their bodies to create a 3D file, which resolution is defined by the number of polygons depicted. The 3D data is turned into 2D sewing patterns by the use of the unfolding function (a common tool in industrial design process to make paper models with) with the help of a laser cutter. Making a clothes pattern in this way changes the aesthetics of the garment fundamentally and frees the designers imagination. A little research has shown that this project was shown at Create Berlin in September 2008 which I missed out on but it is currently on show in California at WoW. Below is a closer look at the designs along with quotes from the individuals involved...

Linda..
"She changed my life from the first moment I was fitting her, when she slipped through my drapery purring. The sounds she made, unerring and self-confident. She fills my design with ease, making me believe in her more then ever."

Markus...
"After hearing a story about a boy brought up by a wolf i wanted this more than anything else. The wolf would have accompanied my nocturnal wanderings, would have eagerly shared my reconnaissances and sometimes my thunderous sighs."

Paul...
"When I was small and just about to learn swimming I was petrified that my swimmies would leak. I squeezed them constantly to check the air level. Surprisingly the swimmies had a different effect outside the water, they gave me tremendous self assurance. In default of that I just left them on all the time."

No comments:

Post a Comment