Designing Garments to Evolve Over Time

This paper describes the most recent collaboration between
fashion designer, Lynda Grose, and textile designer, Vibeke
Riisberg. Research on sustainability in fashion over the last
25 years has been industry-driven and primarily focused on
impacts in the existing supply chain, terms of engagement
with workers and raw fiber provenance. This territory of
research is production-centered, with accepted
sustainability 'experts' being technicians, scientists, LCA
annalists etc. Grose and Riisberg re-situate research at the
center of design. Combining digital printing with analogue
processing and construction, Grose and Riisberg
deconstruct men's dress shirts and prepare and print them
for extended use. This work proposes fully integrating the
'craft of use' (2), craft of analogue and digital making and
sustainability practices. The resulting objects, based on a
radically different set of values, reveal an aesthetic, which
challenges traditional fashion practice, fashion design
education, clothing production and product construction.