Welcome back to Fashion as Design.
This week we're gonna talk about the lifecycle of garments.
We're gonna talk about how they are born, starting with the prime materials that are
used to make them.
And we're gonna talk about how they die, and sometimes are reborn.
How they get recycled, reused, re-adapted.
So we're gonna really think of a whole cradle to cradle.
You probably know this term that was coined about 15 years ago.
A cradle to cradle idea about garments.
We're gonna look first at two of the most poignant garments to talk about this subject.
One is the white T-shirt, and the other is jeans.
Following that we're gonna talk about garments that come back alive, that are anew every
single time they get passed on to new wearers.
And last but not least, we're gonna talk about forever.
About some particular garments and accessories that are so well made that they last for a
long time.
Sometimes, they get passed on from a generation to the other.
Of course, they demand a bigger investment at the beginning but the lifecycle is extended
for decades.
So, there are many different objects, as we said, in this particular week.
But I think we need to talk a little bit about jeans, because I feel that so much current
experimentation, and also so much work on the side of the companies that
make jeans, is going into them.
And one of the things I love looking at is the [University College London] project on
the global denim.
And two anthropologists, the two professors, have looked at the ways in which denim has
proliferated so very much across the globe in the last century or so.
And how it means very many different to different people, and yet has these really universal
and standard meanings also to many.
And so, they use it almost like a litmus test or a barometer of modernity across the globe
in different cultural scenarios and different geographic regions.
And it's been really fascinating to think about jeans.
Therefore, it's one of these key
discussion points in the course, and also in our exhibition.
And that's from the anthropological standpoint.
But then, there is this sustainability and technological standpoint.
So jeans are a crucial example of comfort, of universality, of personality.
And also of waste.
And the good news is that companies are taking this very seriously.
They're looking for ways to use less water.
They're looking for ways to recycle.
Some is experimental, some is already advanced.
But the technology that goes into making the industry more sustainable is mind boggling.
One final note on jeans, when we think of the history of jeans, they were
designed for durability.
Right?
So when we say jeans, denim had been around for centuries.
But when we say jeans, a pair of jeans, this was really something that was born in the
19th century when rivets were applied to different stress points of jeans, including the crotch
and the pockets.
So right off the bat, jeans were designed to last forever.
But also there are some unintentional long lasting garments that are testimonials for
our "Anew" section like the plannel.
The plaid flannel shirt, one of the...
I said the plannel.
Let's call it a plannel.
Like the plannel shirt, yeah.
So when we think of the plaid flannel shirt, I think most of us right off the bat have
images of, you know, hip cool sub-cultures, grunge in particular.
But really, the plaid flannel shirt is a lens to look at how we up-cycle clothing.
So it's interesting because we've been looking at ways to make garments more sensibly.
We've looked at ways to make them last longer, to repair them.
Now there's this kind of new life that they can have.
And then there's the idea of garments that last for a long time.
And, for instance, the menstruation garments that we see today.
There are so many startup companies that are working on something that is an old concept
brought back to life.
Unlike other menstruation products that are designed to be used and then discarded and
have an impact on the environment.
Startup companies are thinking about the ways in which might we use underpants that can
be re-washed and reused.
It's actually a fairly old idea.
And that's the interesting thing that is happening in all forms of design these days.
We tend to have so much to learn.
We always did but now we recognize it.
We have so much to learn from ancient cultures, from material culture, from parts all over
the world.
And interestingly, today we're gonna talk about another topic that is as old as the
world, which is the topic of death.
The week is gonna be closed by the ultimate little black dress, which is by Pia Interlandi,
a designer in Melbourne, Australia, that works with people that are terminally ill and decides
with them what they want to wear when they die.
And they're gonna talk about biodegradability, green burial.
But they also will talk about what they want to leave behind.
Do you think that's the difference then, Paola, actually, if we are talking about Bernard
Rudofsky was thinking about with "Are Clothes Modern?"
That was right at the moment when there was a post-war boom of consumption.
And design history at that point in time is so often talking about how we might use design,
consume design and bring it into our lives.
This particular conversation about life-cycle we have in the contemporary moment, a general
atmosphere or general hope that we consume less.
There's a sort of coming realization that we have finite resources and so we're thinking
more about how we can consume less.
The devil's advocate position in this conversation, is that, of course, fashion is a huge business.
It employs so many people globally.
And many of them are actually women who are using the money that they earn from working
in the garments sector to empower themselves, empower their families, and really, can radically
change their lives.
It's really a matter of awareness.
And also it's a matter of peer pressure.
And it's a matter of just creating a culture that normalizes more ethical behaviors.
So I feel that slowly but surely, if everybody understands that one pair of jeans versus
another is a choice that has impact, then we will, as we say, vote with our wallets.
And make the world more sensible by letting companies know what we accept and what we
don't.