Trends Research
Our current project is titled Waste Age. The Project Brief asks us to “reimagine waste materials into high-end desirable designs” (Bradford School of Art, 2022), using waste materials supplied by A W Hainsworth, a Yorkshire textile manufacturer. With this in mind my research was centred on designs and designers that pay attention to sustainability as an explicit element of their endeavour.
A W Hainsworth is a long-established textile company producing a range of textiles, including luxurious wool cloths for the fashion industry, for military uniforms, and blankets. They also produce technical fabrics for firefighters’ clothing, the transport industry and specialist textiles for other producers, such as makers of snooker tables, pianos, and conveyor belt cloths for the baking industry. Their wool cloths for clothing are used by a range of fashion companies, including RÆBURN and Community Clothing and 3MAN
Trends
Fashion trends are predicted by forecasters who monitor the zeitgeist, considering social events, global issues, cultural events, and other factors such as new technologies. These forecasters sell their ideas to fashion designers. They suggest not only colour palettes, but also possible styles of clothes supported by stories and ideas. If people follow their forecasts then they become a self-fulfilling prophecy!
View magazine is one source of such forecasts. I used the magazine to identify two strands of the many proposed for spring/summer 2023. I selected these strands because the colour palettes appealed to me and I could see a match with some of the fabrics we had been given. Perhaps more importantly for me, the descriptions of the trends reference upcycling and sustainability, issues that are important to me in my life and in my stitching,
Colour palette for The Changemakers (View 136)
The Change Makers, lays a focus on upcycling, using deadstock and scraps to make something new, with the acceptance that this will result in one offs and limited editions. This theme suited the materials which are to be used for the project - all the fabric is scraps from Hainsworth’s mills, in various sizes from small samples to larger pieces, but nothing full width.
The suggested colour palette is “centred around crayon brights mingled with urban neutrals and army greens, marked up with black and chalk white.” (ViewZines, 2022)
Colour palette for Rooted (View 136)
The second strand chosen is Rooted which draws on the history and culture of fabrics but also “highlighting a more optimistic future embedded in education and activism“,
I am interested in the history of textiles, and particular the story of patchwork and quilting, so this was an additional draw.
The palette suggested is much more limited, “dark plum tones compliment sweet apricot and teal-tinted blue”; this description matches some of the fabrics available from those supplied by Hainsworth. (ViewZines, 2022).
So having identified these two trends to inform my project what next?
I have a wide range of colours from A W Hainsworth, but some of them are not close to these palettes, so I shall offer those to other students who have chosen different palettes. This leaves me with this selection, which are obviously not the identical to those in the View palettes, but I wouldn’t expect them to be, they were not dyed with those trends in mind. The colours here do include some of those in the descriptions: brights mixed with neutrals, army greens, marked up with black and chalk white.
Fabrics supplied by A W Hainsworth
All of these fabrics except one are wool, the odd one out is probably fabric used in the transport industry, I shall be looking out for it next time I am on a plane!
In my next post I shall write about my research into styles of garments, seeking to nail my thinking on the item I will be making, bearing in mind the fabrics I have available and the ethos of sustainability.
References:
Bradford School of Art (2022) Textile Project 1 – Waste Age Bradford College.
ViewZines (2022) VIEW The Forecast Issue S/S 2023 https://viewzines.com/
RÆBURN https://www.raeburndesign.co.uk/
Community Clothing https://communityclothing.co.uk/
