SUSTAINABLE FASHION PROJECT
Upcycling project based on the use of old clothing to create new garments. This way, we avoid wasting unwanted clothes and give them a second life.
This prototype features a color harmony inspired by a safari, with earth tones. A mustard sweater was selected, along with a brown denim fabric and a white blouse that matches the sweater with its mustard stripes. Together, they create a harmonious color scheme for the garment.
Restoring a damaged garment to look like new is an increasingly popular practice among designers, who combine savings with creativity and embellishment. Through techniques such as redesigning, cutting, and reconstructing entire garments or parts of them—like scraps, vintage fabrics, and accessories—unique pieces are created, sometimes handmade, and sometimes with the help of more modern technologies.
Reconditioning, by definition, is a labor-intensive activity that relies on an unpredictable and atypical source of raw materials.
Book: Managing Sustainability in Fashion.
SUSTAINABLE FASHION PROJECT
Zero Waste Project, based on using all the material needed without wasting any fabric scraps. Thanks to this technique, we can adopt a creative design approach while giving a second life to pieces we thought were unusable, such as repurposing them as pockets, decorative ruffles, and more. This adds extra value to the prototype.
The design depicted is a navy blue jumpsuit intended for an elegant occasion. It is based on a square-shaped pattern, utilizing all the pieces of the pattern for its subsequent construction.
Fifteen percent of the fabric used by the industry is wasted and ends up on the cutting room floors of factories.
The challenge of optimizing fabric usage is as old as clothing itself. Historically, clothing was expensive because fabrics were costly and the process of making garments was slow. This led to a strong focus on the amount of fabric consumed by a garment and the way the user utilized that piece. (Ethical Fashion for a Sustainable Future, Elena Salcedo). This value has diminished over time, and the planet’s pollution due to this has been accelerating.
The prototype is a jumpsuit, developed from the pattern on the right, utilizing the leftover fabric from the crotch as decoration on the neckline, transforming that excess fabric into ruffles.
SUSTAINABLE FASHION PROJECT
Natural dyes are substances obtained from various parts of plants that have coloring or dyeing properties, using different artisanal processes. These processes include maceration, fermentation, and cooking (Flores and Ling, 1990).
The synthetic production of new hues has made the study of coloring materials more scientific, leading to a better understanding and use of many dyes and their synthesis. However, this development, in addition to causing the ancient extraction techniques to be forgotten, has created previously unknown problems for humanity, such as toxicity and pollution (Cordero, 2000).
To create natural dye:
1. Choose a natural fabric (cotton).
2. Use a mordant, which helps adhere the dye to the fiber structure; this can be either chemical or natural. For this final prototype, I opted for the natural option using vinegar and lemon.
3. Introduce the natural dye, such as black beans. There are many other options depending on the desired finish, like walnut, onion, herbs, iron, berries, etc.
4. Next, let the products sit in boiling water for at least 20 minutes; the longer they steep, the more intense the color will be. In my prototype, the fabric was dyed for a whole day.
5. Finally, remove the fabric, wash it, and dry it to see the result.
