"A film about the future of clothing"
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCsGLWrfE4Y
Yesterday I watched a very inspirational film about the future of clothing. Some active designers, of the fashion world, talk about the current situation of the huge cheap clothing market and their belief in a different future, where fabrics will be connected to smart technology and eco-friendly design.
As we all know, the purpose of the market is to keep the interest of customers high. This is the reason why fashion changes every season - more colors, collections and styles are presented in the market. It is a general fact though that the concept of clothing has not changed much as the purpose of them is always to cover human bodies and signify social codes. A statement made in the start of the video is that the development of fashion could be much more progressive than design and style changes, also concerning the production method which is still made by sewing yarns. The main discussion is about innovation in the field of fabrics, innovation that could alter the technology of fabrics as we know it so far. What we could gain from this would be more human friendly clothing and maybe an ecofriendly way to produce textiles.
The general idea can be expressed by a concept of merging fashion and technology. As the fabrics industry makes huge consumption of energy, materials and also produces a significant amount of waste, it is reasonable to try to bring a change in there. From the designers’ point of view, it really makes sense to try to investigate new ways of producing fabric, less polluting and more sustainable. As presented in the video, for this purpose, the relationship between fashion designers and engineers should become closer.
Examples of designers that try to transform science fiction scenarios about fashion into facts are presented in the video. Such examples are related to wearables, which are technologies integrated in fabrics, that create special effects, such as movement, lighting, measuring the heart rate and vice versa. Biocouture is related to innovation that brings living and biological materials into fashion and sport outfits. A basic recipe presented is a combination of green tea, sugar, vinegar and more additives. The idea here is to embrace nature, rather than dominate it. Personally, I find this kind of innovation very interesting and I am very positively surprised by the fact that there are experts that adopt this ecofriendly and human friendly attitude.
From the consumers’ point of view, as it stands in the video, it is very important to realize the need for a different attitude, than this of buying the cheapest and nicest piece of clothing. Cheap in price is efficient for our expenses but usually costs a lot to the environment. So, having a huge wardrobe with a countless number of clothes and renewing our collections as seasons change is unsustainable. On a different way, what we could do, would be to maintain our clothes in a good condition and learn how to repair them so that we will need to buy less. This attitude belongs to a much more sophisticated way of living.
To close up, it is obvious that all of us, designers and consumers can dynamically adopt an ecofriendly attitude and try to support the use of less and ecofriendly materials in clothes production.