THE JOURNAL

OF
DESIGN
STRATEGIES
Alternative Fashion Systems

VOL. 7, NO. 1 | FALL 2014

VOL. 7, NO. 1 | FALL 2014
ALTERNATIVE FASHION SYSTEMS

EDITORIAL STAFF The Journal of Design Strategies is published

Guest Editors by The New School in association with the School
Pascale Gatzen and Otto von Busch of Design Strategies at Parsons The New School
for Design.
Executive Editor
Matthew Robb PA R SONS
2 West 13th Street, 9th floor
Managing Editor New York, NY 10011
Emily Culliton
Parsons focuses on creating engaged citizens and
Copy Editor outstanding artists, designers, scholars, and business
Ellen Keelan leaders through a design-based professional and
liberal arts education.
Template Design
Pure+Applied Parsons students learn to rise to the challenges
of living, working, and creative decision-
Graphic Design making in a world where human experience is
HvADesign increasingly designed.
Henk van Assen
Mariah Xu The school embraces curricular innovation, pioneer-
ing uses of technology, collaborative methods, and
Illustrations global perspectives on the future of design.
12-na Marks and Spenser
Fiona Bailey OpenWear Volume 8 of the Journal, to be published Spring
Jennifer Ballie Painted 2015, will address the theme of New Public
Suzanne Bocanegra Lauren Downing Peters Goods.
BurdaStyle.com Joke Robaard
Petter Cohen Nacho Rojas The New School 2014. All rights reserved. ISSN: 1935-0112.
ISSN: 1935-0120 (online).
Jorge Colombo Serpica Naro
Emmeline de Mooij Bert Stern
Miriam Dym Stephanie Syjuco
Marco Garofalo Louise te Poele
Giana Pilar Gonzlez Bianca Thoyer Rozat
Paige Green Simon Upton
Marc Herbst Hannah van Grimbergen
Amy Twigger Holroyd Robin Vogel
Kldoteket Pieter Wackers
Simon Edgar Lord

THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS LETTER FROM THE DEAN

3 LETTER FROM THE DEAN

4 STEPHAN WEISS LECTURE SERIES

5 LETTER FROM THE EDITORS I am pleased to present Volume 7 of The Journal of Design Strategies, on
Pascale Gatzen and Otto von Busch Alternative Fashion Systems. Fashion today plays a bigger role in more

peoples lives than at any previous time in history. New designs move from
catwalk to retail outlet with unprecedented rapidity, even as prices have fallen
9 SECTION 1: STEPHAN WEISS LECTURES
sharply. But this democratization of style can also impose its own costs,
10 In the Hands of the User: The Local Wisdom Project and the Search for an replacing a thoughtful and enduring relationship to ones clothing with a
Alternative Fashion System Kate Fletcher regime of relentless consumption for its own sake.
17 From Open-Source Branding to Collaborative Clothing Zoe Romano The artists, designers, and thinkers whose work is collected in this volume
share a commitment to exploring new types of fashionability, beyond those
28 Workstyles J. Morgan Puett recommended by the mainstream fashion system. The various projects span
37 A Winning Fabric, A Broken Text Joke Robaard an exceptionally wide range, some operating squarely within the parameters of

commercial enterprise, others independent of the marketplace and its demands,
still others sharply critical of the current system. Notably, none of the projects
45 SECTION 2: VIGNETTES
exhibited here represents an anti-fashion sensibility: on the contrary, all of
the artists, designers, and theorists showcased in these pages have a serious and
46 Wardrobe, Recycling, Consequence: Interview with Mariano Breccia and abiding interest in clothing and in the many meanings that clothing style can
Mechi Martinez of 12-na Elizabeth Oria convey. Collectively, they reaffirm fashion as something worth reflecting on.
55 Logo Removal Service Miriam Dym I want to thank the Karan-Weiss Foundation for its continued sponsorship
62 Fashion Codes Hacked, Indexed, and Shared Giana Pilar Gonzlez of the Stephan Weiss Lecture Series as well as this Journalsupport that allows
us to continue to explore emerging developments at the intersection of design,
65 Laundry Habits Jade Whitson-Smith business, and the wider culture we share.
68 Golden Joinery: On Imperfect Beauty Margreet Sweerts
80 Fashion 2012 Marc Herbst
84 The Counterfeit Crochet Project (Critique of a Political Economy
Stephanie Syjuco
88 Unpick and Remix: Textile Design Services for Fashion Jennifer Ballie Joel Towers
Dean

93 SECTION 3: CASE STUDIES

94 The Brooklyn Flea: A Model for Counter-Consumption?

Lauren Downing Peters
100 Disruption Through Download: Burdastyle.com and The Home
Sewing Community Rachel Kinnard
107 Check Out Some Fashion: Clothing Libraries in Sweden
Alessandro Esculapio
118 Re-Knitting: The Emotional Experience of Opening Knitted Garments
Amy Twigger Holroyd
128 CONTRIBUTORS

2 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 3

STEPHAN WEISS LECTURE SERIES
LETTER
FROM THE EDITORS
Each year, Parsons School of Design Strategies hosts the Stephan Weiss Lecture
Series on Business Strategy, Negotiation, and Innovation. This lectureship
was launched in 2002 to commemorate the life of the late artist and sculptor
Stephan Weiss, husband and business partner of the fashion designer Donna
Karan. Weiss co-founded Donna Karan International in 1984, and was instru-
mental in every significant venture the company undertook: launching and
structuring new brands, most notably the Donna Karan Beauty Company;
signing new licenses; establishing in-house legal and creative departments;
devising its computer design technology; orchestrating the companys initial
public offering in 1996; and negotiating its sale to the current owner, LV MH
Mot Hennessy Louis Vuitton.
In Spring 2009, the School of Design Strategies became the formal host of the
Stephan Weiss Lecture Series, inaugurating a new format for the lectures, the
Design Strategies Dialogue. Weiss lectures have since been conducted as inter-
views and as larger panel discussions, in addition to traditional lectures.
Recent Weiss lecturers and Dialogue participants have included Natalie Jer-
emijenko, director of the Environmental Health Clinic at New York University;
Yochai Benkler, Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard
University and co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society;
Sonia Manchanda, co-founder of IDIOM Design Consulting in Bangalore,
India; and Joo Tezza Neto, Director of Science and Technology at the Brazilian
nonprofit organization Amazonas Sustainable Foundation. Over the last decade, under the banner of a
democratized consumption driven by ever-cheaper The dominant discourse and
and more rapid production methods, fashion has
become a phenomenon saturating the everyday life practice of fashion have made the
of most western societies. The dominant discourse fashion industry more ubiquitous
and practice of fashion, which tend to support core and influential than ever before,
values of the market economy, have made the fashion
industry more ubiquitous and influential than but have also transformed it into
ever before, but have also transformed it into an an unsustainable behemoth in
unsustainable behemoth in serious need of change. serious need of change.
Can we identify other fashion systems and nar-
ratives, currently subsisting in the shadow of the
dominant one: everyday practices of dress; alternative
modes of exchange; deviant historical and cultural This issue of The Journal of Design Strategies exam-
modes of production, consumption and dress; partici- ines alternative fashion systems now developing in
patory, do-it-yourself (DI Y ), and other practices at the margins and interstices of the dominant market
the fringes of the mainstream fashion system? Could model, collecting cases, examples, and proposals
these parallel systems be nurtured and organized, from across the world and providing access points
creating visibility and proposing socially sustain- for the advancement of new practices and educa-
able alternatives to the dominant models of clothing tional models in fashion.
provision and the dissemination of style?

4 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 5

OVERVIEW OF THIS VOLUME
This issue of the Journal is divided into three
sections. The first contains articles provided by
the invited Stephan Weiss Lecturers of 2012-13.
Sustainable fashion theorist Kate Fletcher shares
examples of some of her work intended to promote
more thoughtful and resourceful ways of maintain-
ing and relating to ones clothes, and a more general
conception of prosperity that goes beyond mere
purchasing power. Political activist and open-source
pioneer Zoe Romano details her role in an elaborate
hoax carried out during the 2005 Milan Fashion
Week, and her more recent efforts to develop an
open-source fashion brand. Artist J. Morgan Puett
surveys some of her many art projects and instal-
lations that have explored various aspects of attire,
particularly in their social implications. Artist and
in which participants use crochet to counterfeit
handbags based on recognizable designer styles. And
sustainable fashion researcher Jennifer Ballie details
a clothing swap initiative sponsored by the British
retailer Marks and Spencer in conjunction with the
UN agency Oxfam, and a correlated workshop she
conducted in which participants were encouraged
to redesign and repurpose existing garments using
simple dressmaking techniques, taught on the spot.
A true democratization of style
must go beyond increasing the
number of available consump-
tion choices, engaging people
more directly in the active and
The range and diversity of these various initiatives
hint at the amount of creative and reflective energy
being devoted to some of the challenges associated
with mainstream fashion. But they also attest to
the abiding importance of fashion itself, as a vehicle
for self-definition and differentiation. In the end,
these projects suggest that a true democratization
of style must go beyond increasing the number
of available consumption choices, engaging people
more directly in the active and intentional develop-
ment of their personal style, and of the clothing
they choose to express it.
Pascale Gatzen and Otto von Busch
Guest Editors, The Journal of Design Strategies
Volume 7

fashion theorist Joke Robaard offers a meditation intentional development of their

on textile-based metaphors, and their power to
illuminate aspects of social and political life more
generally.
Section 2 comprises a series of short vignettes,
each exploring a practice that in some way rep-
resents an alternative to the mainstream fashion
system. In an interview, textile artists 12-na discuss
their practice of using recycled clothing both as
means of exploratory self-expression and in the
creation of unique, high-value garments. Artist
Miriam Dym shares her practice of removing com-
mercial logos from garments, replacing them with
randomly-shaped patches in contrasting colors.
Branding consultant Giana Pilar Gonzlez describes
her method for hacking the brand codes of luxury
fashion lines, extracting elements and motifs that
can be incorporated into other clothing items by the
craftivist fashion lovers who attend her work-
shops. Textile expert Jade Whitson-Smith discusses
her experiment in giving up the use of her washing
machine for a year. Fashion and theater designer
Margreet Sweerts describes the work of Painted,
the artist collective she helped found, in particular
their workshops providing instruction and support
in old or almost-forgotten craft and repair methods
for garments. Artist and publisher Marc Herbst
shares a speculative proposal for a post-capitalist
fashion style. Installation artist Stephanie Syjuco
discusses her web- and workshop-based project
personal style, and of the clothing
they choose to express it.
Section 3 includes four case studies, each
exploring a current initiative that in some way
complicates the standard top-down and consump-
tion-driven structure of the contemporary fashion
industry. Fashion studies doctoral candidate Lauren
Downing Peters exposes the inner workings of the
Brooklyn Flea, a thriving series of flea markets that
are helping stimulate, while also profiting from,
an increasing interest in pre-owned and vintage
clothing. Journalist, curator, and fashion designer
Rachael Kinnard investigates the robust culture that
has sprung up on the BurdaStyle.com website, a
commercial outlet for downloadable sewing patterns
which has also become a large repository of reviews,
advice, and general support, created by and for
home sewing enthusiasts. Fashion studies researcher
Alessandro Esculapio discusses the emergence of
clothing libraries in Sweden. Finally, fashion de-
signer and researcher Amy Twigger Holroyd shares
some materials from her doctoral studies focused
on the practice of re-knittingunraveling part
of a knitted garment in order to repair or refashion
itand the emotional resonances connected with
this practice.

6 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 7

 SECTION 1:
STEPHAN WEISS
LECTURES

8 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 9

IN THE HANDS OF THE USER:
The Local Wisdom Project
and the Search for an
Alternative Fashion System
Kate Fletcher
Over the past 50 years, our civilization has become
a consumerization. The prevailing consumerist style,
in particular the expression of consumer society
through the clothes we buy and wear, is so natural
to our way of thinking and acting that we hardly
notice it. It has become normal for us to access and
engage with fashion primarily by exchanging money
for products. It has also become normal to us that
these same products will be out of date, stylistically
incongruous, within about six months. We discard
rather than repair. In fashion as in most other areas
of contemporary society, our ideas of progress have
become so tied to a societal narrative of growth
through continuous buying that the accelerating
purchase and disposal of garments is now seen as a
necessary component of modern living.
The market domination of clothing production
and consumption has changed the fashion indus-
try: fashion is now structured to suit the demands
of consumption as an independent value. Cheaper
10 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
It has become normal for us to
access and engage with fashion
primarily by exchanging money
for products. It has also become
normal to us that these same
products will be out of date,
stylistically incongruous, within
about six months. We discard
rather than repair.
garments have likewise changed consumption
patterns. In the first decade of the 21st century,
clothing prices in Europe fell by over 26 percent
in real terms, and in the US by 17 percent.1
These consumption patterns have altered the High
Street, changing the face of the market for clothes as
well as our ideas about what fashion is. Combined
with the decline in real prices, the need for ceaseless
market growth and positive return on investment
has changed the way people consume clothes
primarily by greatly accelerating their rate of
consumption. In the UK alone, 2 million tons of
new clothing are bought each year, and 1.1 million
tons discarded.2 Besides suggesting a hoarding
problem among many British consumers, this figure
testifies to fashions enormous contribution to the
waste stream.
In the UK alone, 2 million tons
of new clothing are bought
each year, and 1.1 million tons
discarded.
Shopping is presented as a democratic choice,
a political triumph that conjoins economic and
personal freedoms. But we measure fashion success
in terms of retail sales figures, and this in turn
shapes the way we dress, as people are channeled
into specific ways of dressingcalling into ques-
tion how free our consumption choices really
are. Businesses provide garments at specific price
points for specific target markets; as a corollary the
quality and quantity of other options often declines.
Especially since the 1960s, a new hierarchy of fash-
ion provision, driven by top designers and brands,
has helped to displace nearly all other experiences
of fashion. Shared public expectations of creating
fashion are largely forgotten, with solutions now
framed entirely within the shopping mall. Choices
that dont fit into this paradigm are made to appear
undesirable, impractical, or too expensive.
Contemporary fashion is also linked to structures
that reinforce the socioeconomic status quo: instead
of reflecting fashions wider potentials, the industry
reflects the dominant mode of production and the
interests of the dominant market players. In this
way, fashion is implicated in modern systems of
power and controlindeed the industry has been
described as a velvet glove of seductive surface cov-
ering the hard fist of economic expediency.3 Thus,
if we are to begin to envision alternative fashion
systems, we must be prepared to think and engage
with existing patterns of power, economic logic,
and social conditions. We must be prepared to ask
and answer questions that speak to societys most
important themes, and to do so with a focused mind
and heart. Granted, consumerism and the ceaseless
pursuit of economic growth may not be at the root
of all the problems we face, but they make many
of those problems much, much worse. Therefore,
in order to even begin to think about alternative
fashion systems, we must first understand fashions
relationship to consumerist materialism.
As an engine both of rapid consumption and of
the ideology of consumerism, fashion is bound up
in systems of economic growth: it rewards individu-
alization, commodification, and the speeding up of
instant solutions. All this has major consequences.
The UN estimates that by 2050, we as a global
society will be facing a tripling of annual resource
extraction and consumption rates.4 In order to
maintain relative climate stability, it projects, af-
fluent countries must reduce their resource use by
about a factor of five, or 80 percent.5
The impact of the fashion sector on the global
environment began receiving specific recognition
in the early 1990s. In response, the industry has
developed alternative fibers, new chemical processes,
technical improvements in water and energy use,
and supply chain efficiency improvements. Many
of these changes are positive in themselves. Yet the
welcome decline in impact per garment that these
eco-efficiencies have delivered has been completely
overshadowed by an increase in overall consump-
tion. In other words, efforts to lessen the impact of
1 Robin Anson. Editorial: End 4 Decoupling Natural Resource
of the Line for Cheap Clothing?
Textile Outlook International
Use and Environmental Impacts
from Economic Growth, A
147 (2010): 5. Report of the Working Group on
Decoupling to the International
2 Textiles and Clothing: Resource Panel, United Na-
Opportunities for Recycling, tions Environmental Programme
Textile Outlook International (2010): 30, www.unep.org/
139 (2009): 94-113. resourcepanel/decoupling/
files/pdf/decoupling_report_
3 Jeremy Till, Architecture english.pdf.
Depends (Cambridge: The MIT
Press, 2009), 123. 5 Decoupling Natural Resource
Use, 30.
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 11
the fashion sector at the level of individual garments
have been eclipsed by the vastly increased total
number of garments that we now buy.
Contemporary fashions dependence on the
consumerist ideal lends to the idea of sustainable
fashion an air of paradox. After all, even if we buy
organic cotton childrens pajamas or recycled polyes-
ter fleece for weekends in the country, we neverthe-
less maintain our dependency on market exchange.
We reduce our ability to be self-reliant and mark our
own path, not just in acquiring clothing but in life
more generally. An increasingly narrow spectrum
of activity is valued, and what we demand today is
more and more conditioned by prior experiences of
individualistic consumption. Alternatives are forced
out of the mainstream and into the shadows, and
ultimately suppressed.
The UN estimates that by
2050, we as a global society
will be facing a tripling of
annual resource extraction and
consumption rates. In order to
maintain relative climate stability,
it projects, affluent countries
must reduce their resource use by
about 80 percent.
The challenges we face are more political than
technical; indeed, we have most of the technologies
we need to transform our economy. At the 2012
R I T E (Reducing the Impact of Textiles on the
Environment) Conference, participants discussed
waterless dying, super-critical carbon dioxide dy-
ing, and a range of other readily available techni-
cal initiatives that reduce the amount of resources
used per garment produced.6 What we lack are the
skills to apply these techniques within a larger bank
of alternatives. We need new types of action, and
structures that allow cultural conditions, customs
and routines to change, to create new kinds of
demand. Essentially, we need to adopt a much
broader view. We need big thinking, political vision,
12 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
and shared public discourse that sees consumerist
fashion alongside credible, viable, beautiful, exciting
alternatives. If we are to think about fashion in a
new way, we must not only reduce the amount we
buy, but also and importantly engage with the pro-
cesses and infrastructure of consumption.
If we are to think about fashion
in a new way, we must not
only reduce the amount we
buy, but also engage with the
processes and infrastructure of
consumption.
In her book Architecture and Design versus
Consumerism: How Design Activism Confronts
Growth, author Ann Thorpe explores the idea that
we must confront the values of consumerism and
endless growth head-on in order to foster change.
She surveys research on the pleasure that attends
the purchase of something one wants. If we have a
fairly low overall level of consumption, we experi-
ence pleasure from buying more. However, as we
begin to accumulate more, we experience diminish-
ing emotional returns of novelty and stimulation.
We become locked in a cycle of needing ever more
stuff to regain the satisfaction and the stimulation
experienced with earlier consumption.7 Similarly,
in The Challenge of Affluence, author Avner Offer
speaks eloquently about the benefits that increasing
affluence has afforded over the last 50 years, in the
US and the UK especially. He writes that, while af-
fluence has indeed increased our standard of living,
more moderate increases
in affluence would nev-
6 See ritegroup.org.
ertheless have sufficed
because beyond a certain 7DesignAnn Thorpe, Architecture and
versus Consumerism:
threshold, additional How Design Activism Confronts
Growth (London: Routledge,
wealth contributes little, 2012).
nothing or even nega-
8 Avner Offer, The Challenge
tively to well-being.8 of Affluence: Self-Control and
The struggle between Well-Being in the United States
long-term and short-term and Britain since 1950 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006),
reward is at the heart of 356.
many of the conflicts around consumption. Our
sense of responsibility and concern for others draws
our gaze to the longer term, but prevailing social
norms and infrastructure urge, Buy it now! You
need it! You deserve it! You want it! Individualized
advertising made possible by Internet marketing
strategies only reinforces this focus on ourselves.
We need prudence, self-control
and willpower. We need fashion
systems that promote these traits,
by evoking an idea of commitment
to long-term security as a
counterweight to the call of the
individual, immediate moment.
What strategies will help us balance our desire
for immediate rewards with our long-term interests
and commitments? Offer suggests that we need
prudence, self-control and willpowerbut these are
qualities that are very difficult to maintain against
a backdrop of cheap, instant gratification, and that
can only be cultivated through time, training and
a process of social learning and education. Perhaps,
then, what we need are fashion systems that
promote precisely these traits, by evoking an idea
of commitment to long-term security as a coun-
terweight to the call of the individual, immediate
moment. We need to change the social narrative,
so that the idea of progress is no longer tied to
economic growth through increasing the number
of market transactions alone, and old patterns can
begin to shift. We need to build a more integrated
picture of social and material assets and connec-
tions, using fashion as a medium.
This more integrated picture requires us to open
up the life of the user. Consumerism promotes a
view of us as autonomous individuals who are not
part of an ethical, social world. Part of what we
need from a new social narrative is a renewed sense
of responsibility to others. And to create such a new
social narrative, we need
9 Till, Architecture Depends, 79.
to enter the everyday
experience of the user again and again. The value of
sustainability is not imposed by the intrinsic physi-
cal properties of a garment but given by the social
systems that surround it, by the interrelationships
that happen on an ongoing basis in peoples lives.
Fashion is frequently created and put on display
in ways that have nothing to do with real life;
instead, fashion posits an idealized moment before
time enters, before the garment has been on the
body of an actual person. Such an approach to
design is almost an attempt to control time, or to
look away from it.9 When time and the real user are
ignored, fashion becomes an object for which you
have no responsibility, one that isnt about having
social experiences and relationships at all, but about
making money. By freezing time, you distance your-
self from the garment as a potential site of social and
cultural engagement and value.
However, we can no longer pretend that our inter-
est in garments stops at the point of sale. Without
a sense of real life and time, garments are empty.
We need to enter the complex, messy, unpredictable
lives of other people and tap into them as a resource.
When we operate within a broader time frame, we
move away from the certainty that we can control
everythingthis fabric, in this style, at that cost
and instead embrace a dynamic relationship that is
open to change. We should provide a frame for life
to unfold in, that enables people to reach their full
potential and capabilities. In other words, the new
garments we create should be judged not for what
they are at the point of sale, but for what they are
capable of becoming.
Resourcefulness is another especially crucial
component of any alternative to the mainstream
fashion system, particularly at a time when we are
reaching the environmental limits even to continued
existence on our planet. In a genuinely alternative
The new garments we create
should be judged not for what
they are at the point of sale,
but for what they are capable
of becoming.
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 13
 FIGURE 1 (LEFT): Self-mended jeans. San Francisco, July 2012. Photo: Paige Green.

fashion system, design and use would comprise a that people have come up with in connection with
single whole: what actually happens in the lives of their clothes (SEE FIGURES 1-3).10
people who use garments would provide inputs for Among the projects benefits are the opportuni-
fashion design and production. Therefore, an impor- ties it provides to look elsewhere than the fashion
tant part of altering the fashion system must involve world itself for ideas. One such idea comes from
fostering skills and practices that are conducive to the Dutch town of Drachten, where traffic engineer
promoting a satisfying use of garments. Hans Monderman introduced an innovative type of
These componentstime, resourcefulness, user- street layout designed to reduce the number of ac-
shipare central to the Local Wisdom research cidents between pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles.11
project, an initiative to capture and record innova- In a radical move, Monderman took away all the
tive practices of garment use by gathering everyday street signs and street furniture, and flattened the
individual stories and photographs. We advertise a sidewalks to road level.
photo shoot in a local community, inviting members 10 See localwisdom.info.
He then installed a
of the public to take part. People come to the shoot single sign declaring
11 Tom McNichol, Roads
to share the craft of use: the subtle, clever, and sat- Gone Wild, Wired, December
that nobody had prior-
isfying things they do with their clothes as they use 12, 2004, wired.com/ ityin this area, called
wired/archive/12.12/traffic.
them. The projects goal is to find ways to amplify html?pg=1&topic=raffic&topic
a shared space, all users
the ingenious fixes, alterations, and modifications _set=. had to be respectful

FIGURE 2: Altered vest. Bollington, Cheshire, UK, July 2009. Photo: Fiona Bailey.

14 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 15

and aware of all others. The goal was not to curtail
freedom and mobility but to encourage it, and to do
so in a whole new way. Both traffic efficiency and
pedestrian safety improved measurably after the
Monderman re-design of the intersection. How was
this possible? Monderman reasoned that at a road
junction, if there is a sign saying who has priority,
or a light that indicates who should stop, then we
cease to watch out for one another. We dont take
responsibility, because the system is doing it for us.
In a shared space, on the other hand, we have to
take over the responsibility of watching out for each
other and begin to care for everybody.
A new, alternative fashion system
must be based on an ethos of
care, on attentiveness to one
another and concern for the
future, on continuous tending.
Each of the images from Local Wisdom represents
an alternative that has been suppressed because it is
not part of the fashion status quo. The new fashion
system must breathe life into these alternatives. It
must enable our society to develop in quality with-
out necessarily growing in quantity, that is, without
producing yet more stuff. Well-being is about more
than having more things. Pacing our consumption
is actually better for us.
We neednt start from scratch: the stories collected
in the Local Wisdom archive provide numerous
examples of people who effectively regulate their
consumption of fashion without in any way dimin-
ishing their joy in experiencing it. But it is up to us
to foster and nourish these alternatives.
These stories are seeds of hope, and they must be
told many times if they are to take root and change
lives. We are beginning to develop a system with
alternative values, perhaps chief among them a sense
of responsibility and an ethos of care. As in a shared
space where no one has priority, and in particular
where industry doesnt have priority, we are allowing
the absence of hierarchy. We are allowing everyone
to develop opportunities in their own way.

The situation is similar in the case of consumerist

fashion. Here too, it is easy to rely on government
to introduce a new law that tells us what to do, or a
labeling service that says, This one is good for the
planet. That one was made under fair labor condi-
tions. But we have to begin to take responsibility
for ourselves. A new, alternative fashion system
must accordingly be based on an ethos of care, on
attentiveness to one another and concern for the
future, on continuous tending. Its about fostering
an economy of community alongside the economy
of freedom.
This new system must be holistic, interdependent,
dynamic, creative, responsible, resourceful, and
satisfying. It must lead toward an alternative that
permits us to imagine a way of living and being to-
gether not predicated on constant economic growth,
that builds prosperity through channels other than
the market, and that values a broad spectrum of
activity, not only those that can be most readily
monetized.

FIGURE 3: Found sweater. San Francisco, April 2010. Photo: Paige Green.

16 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 17

 FROM OPEN-SOURCE BRANDING
TO COLLABORATIVE CLOTHING
Zoe Romano

In the mid-1990s, changes in Italian labor laws on Italys youth: insecurity caused by chronic under-
brought about a fundamental shift in the way employment.2 The market was no longer providing
people worked.1 These changes particularly affected
young people entering the workforce, who were no 1 Rachel Donadio, Stuck in 2 Precarity may refer to any
longer being offered the type of long-term contracts Recession, Italy Takes on Labor condition of existence without
Laws That Divide the Genera- predictability or security, affect-
familiar to their parents, many of whom had stayed tions, The New York Times, ing material and psychologi-
in the same job for 30 years or more. Instead, in- March 19, 2013, nytimes. cal welfare, but is commonly
com/2012/03/19/world/ associated with the condition of
creasing numbers of young Italians were starting europe/italy-tackles-labor- underemployment. To some de-
their careers under reduced contracts, the details of laws-that-divide-young-and-old. gree, the condition of precarity
html?pagewanted=all. Stephan affects all of service labor, but
which were often difficult to understand. I became Faris, Italys Labor Pains, the phenomenon is historically
involved in a social movement that arose to address Bloomberg Businessweek concentrated among youth,
Magazine, November 16, 2011, women, and immigrants. See
this situation. Our Milan-based group, known as businessweek.com/magazine/ Merijn Oudenampsen and Gavin
the Chainworkers, began coordinating with work- italys-labor-pains-11162011. Sullivan, Precarity and N/
html. European Identity: (An Interview
ers in France and England, seeking to publicize the with Alex Foti [Chainworkers]),
concept of precarity as a way of highlighting the Mute, October 6, 2004, www.
metamute.org/editorial/ar-
circumstances of young Europeans, and in particu- ticles/precarity-and-neuropean-
lar the consequence of the new working conditions identity-interview-alex-foti-
chainworkers.

FIGURE 1 (SEE PREVIOUS PAGE): Logo for San Precario, developed by the Chainworkers.

18 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 19

adequate full-time jobs, a state of affairs very famil-
iar to freelance, temporary, and flex workers in the
United States, but previously unknown in Italy.
Our group held weekly planning and strategy
meetings in squatters buildings around Milan.3
With all our actions and activities self-organized
and self-financed, we chose to focus our initial
efforts on the two industrial sectors that employ
the most young Italians: the service sector, which
includes call centers, chain stores, and restaurants;
and the creative sector. Both of these sectors are
characterized by high levels of precarity within their
labor forces.
Workers in the service sector generally dont see
their job as their real work, and they therefore
tend to avoid confronting poor conditions. We
began organizing call center and supermarket work-
ers, who were able to talk, plan, and strategize over
the course of the many hours they spent working
together. Working with freelancers and temporary
workers proved more difficult, since they could
be let go once they showed signs of organizing.
Partly to address this problem, the Chainworkers
drew upon the countrys tradition of patron saints
in canonizing a new saint, an Italian worker we
dubbed San Precario, the saint of precarious work-
ers everywhere. We also developed an associated
logo for our new saint (SEE FIGURE 1).4
The image of San Precario soon became wide-
spread throughout Italy and Europe, largely as a
result of the EuroMayDay Parades, an annual event
that focuses on precarity, which originated in Milan
in the early 2000s and by 2005 were being held in
15 cities and drawing some 100,000 participants.5
Thousands of pins
3 Chainworkers interviewed by
bearing the logo of San
Mara Cecilia Fernndez, From Precario were distrib-
Labor Precarity to Social Precar-
uted at these and similar
ity: Interview, Chainworkers
3.0, March 2005, www.chain- events, and these pins
workers.org/node/82.
4 Marcello Tar and Ilaria Vanni,
On the Life and Deeds of San 5 Alice Mattoni, Serpica Naro
Precario, Patron Saint of Precar- and the Others. The Media
ious Workers and Lives, The Sociali Experience in Italian
Fibreculture Journal 5 (2005): Struggles Against Precarity,
23, five.fibreculturejournal.org/ Portal Journal of Multidisci-
fcj-023-on-the-life-and-deeds- plinary International Studies 5,
of-san-precario-patron-saint- no. 2 (2008): 4-9, epress.lib.
of-precarious-workers-and- uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/
lives/. portal/article/view/706/920.
20 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
afforded a way for service workers to identify one
another without their employers knowledge.
The other sector in Milan that my group focused
on was the creative sector, comprising the intersect-
ing worlds of fashion design, advertising, event
planning, and media. In contrast to those working
in the service sector, people in these fields see their
career not as a job, but as an expression of their
personality. As a result, many young people are will-
ing to work for little or no pay, in the hope that they
will eventually be recognized and rewarded for their
creative work. These factors combine in frequently-
overheard comments such as, Im a designer, but
I pay my rent by working in a call center, or, Im
a journalist, but I work at a bar to pay the bills.
Many live with their parents until well into their
thirties, staying at low-paying jobs in the anticipa-
tion of promotion and independence. However,
that rarely happens: a 2009 survey by Chainworkers
of fashion workers in Milan found that 60 percent
had been working for more than five years, and 60
A 2009 survey of fashion workers
in Milan found that 60 percent
had been working for more
than five years, and 60 percent
depended on their parents
financial support. 65 percent
believed that they would never
earn enough to support a family.
percent depended at least partially on their parents
continuing financial support. Almost 65 percent
believed that they would never earn enough to sup-
port a family.6
We wanted to help stimulate a conversation
around the fact that millions of Italys young people
now work for years without proper pay, and to
find ways to confront the situation. We wanted to
activate a network of otherwise atomized work-
ers, to make them more visible in the mainstream
media, and to challenge the fashion companies and
other institutional actors that were employing these
peopleabove all the National Chamber for Italian fictitious designer seem obscure and controver-
Fashion, the industry group that organizes the sial. For example, the interviewer asked, Youve
Milan fashion shows.7 said that you design the design. What does that
mean?to which Serpica Naro answered, I design
everything, from when I wake up to when I go to
To increase the realism around sleep. Even the people who work for me have to let
our fictitious fashion designer, themselves be designed. Design is no longer just the
making of clothes or products. Today we create our
we developed branding and a own universe. Essentially, we were imitating the
communication campaign, and senseless art-speak and design-speak typical of the
we mobilized San Precario as an industry.
Concurrently with the interview, one of our
antagonist. groups members contacted the National Chamber
for Italian Fashion posing as Serpica Naros agent,
explaining that we were a new brand just enter-
Fashion Week in Milan is a crazy, compressed ing the Italian market from Japan, and asking
week full of events. Knowing that journalists how we could be part of the event. They told us to
would have no interest in talking to activists then, send them a book of the collection, our trademark
we invented a way to be heard. Using people who registration, a list of buyers, and other materials, all
worked in the fashion systemas freelancers, temp of which we could easily fabricate. They didnt ask
workers, and catwalk internswe created a fake to see the collection itself, so we didnt need to show
fashion designer to enter into the official schedule any actual products.
for Milan Fashion Week 2005. It was the one-year To make the book, we altered stock photos from
anniversary of the birth of San Precario, so we the web (SEE FIGURE 3). We didnt have funds for print-
used an anagram of that name: Serpica Naro. This ing, so I designed the book industrial style, en-
Anglo-Japanese name served both to capitalize on larging the photos at a copy shop and binding them
the current Italian infatuation with Asian design,
and to obscure Serpica Naros origins by making her
headquarters in Japan (SEE FIGURE 2).
To increase the realism around our fictitious fash-
ion designer, we worked on multiple levels: we de-
veloped branding and a communication campaign,
and we mobilized San Precario as an antagonist.
The first step involved creating a fake fashion
magazine, Settimana della Moda, which purported
to focus on promising young designers in Milan.
Soon, young fashion designers began writing to us
asking to be interviewed and expressing their ap-
preciation that Fashion
Week was finally think-
6 Adam Arvidsson, Giannino
ing and talking about
Malossi and Serpica Naro,
Passionate Work? Labour them. But our main
Conditions in the Milan Fashion
purpose was to have
Industry, Journal for Cultural
Research 14, no. 2 (2010): a vehicle for publish-
295-309, accessed January 2,
ing an interview with
2014, doi: 10.1080/
14797581003791503. Serpica Naro.
The interview was
7 See cameramoda.it/en/as-
sociazione/cosa-e-la-cnmi/. designed to make the FIGURE 2: Image from the press release for Serpica Naro
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 21
with metal hardware from which the book could
hang. Three days after they received our materials,
the Chamber for Fashion called to tell us that we
were accepted.
Some of our friends who worked in fashion
agencies and press offices couldnt believe it: they
thought we must have known someone on the inside
in order to be included in the official Fashion Week
schedule. Designers typically hire graphic artists
and incur enormous expenses to get into the Milan
shows. But the truth is, we were just doing our
jobsas workers in the fashion system, we knew
how to make things look good. However, we were
now doing our jobs for a different reason: activism.
Meanwhile, for the catwalk show we created
a collection of ten garments, each an allegory of
our work experiences. In one, called 60 Days,
the model wore 60 T-shirts numbered 1 to 60, the
idea being that you take one off every day for two
months as you wait obediently to be paid, a situation
that occurs often in Italy. Another, called Bisex
Tenderness, allows you to dress either as a man or a
woman, depending on the employers requirements.
The Mouse Trap is a shirt and skirt designed
to fend off an inappropriately touchy boss. The
Pregnant Lady is designed to help precarious and
temp workers hide a pregnancy for as long as pos-
sible, so they are not laid off. The Mobbing Style
is a pair of trousers with anti-stress puppets. When
you are really stressed out, you just squeeze the pup-
pets to relieve stress. Finally, the Wedding Dress is
designed for migrant workers who need to marry an
Italian man in order to get a work permit (SEE FIGURE 4).
How could we have a brand
that didnt just accumulate
value, but redistributed it; how
could we find an alternative to
the overproduction of creative
workers, itself a major cause
of the low wages and chronic
underemployment typical of the
sector?
22 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
Shortly before the event, we circulated the rumor
that Serpica Naro had offered 15,000 euros to San
Precario for the use of his Milan squat for her
catwalk showsiting shows in squats and unusual
alternative venues being a common practice among
designers at the time. We had San Precario reply
that he would not allow Serpica Naro to bring
gentrification to his neighborhood, and that he now
planned to come to her show with protesters.
This fabricated controversy began to attract the
attention of journalists. Even the police called
us, to warn Serpica Naros agent that protestors
were planning to invade her catwalk and ask if
she needed protection. The agent said no, that the
designer wanted direct contact with the activists,
but the police came anyway, and eventually we had
to reveal the truththat there was no new fashion
brand, that we were behind both Serpica Naro and
San Precario, and that we were actually a group of
precarious workers, determined to have our say.8
CREATION OF THE METABRAND
As soon as the Milan Fashion Week hoax became
known, we sold out of our Chainworker and San
Precario T-shirts, and people were clamoring for
more. Thats when we realized that we had had actu-
ally created a brand, something with independent
value. Indeed, people began contacting us offering
to buy the brand and turn it into a real fashion label,
but by then we had higher ambitions for leveraging
our newfound cultural notoriety.
Like all mainstream fashion brands, Serpica Naro
had been built to appeal by expressing valuesonly
the values we actually wanted to promote included
sharing, social innovation, security over precarity,
and alternative economies, not just endless
consumption for its own sake. Our conversations
accordingly began to coalesce around two main
questions: how could we have a brand that didnt
just accumulate value, but redistributed it; and how
could we find an alternative to the overproduction
of creative workers, itself a major cause of the low
8 Ben, February 27, 2005
wages and chronic un-
deremployment typical
(22:08), Milan Fashion Week
Anti-precarity Action, www. of the sector?
nettime.org/Lists-Archives/net-
time-l-0502/msg00066.html.
As we studied FIGURE 3: Images from Serpica Naros collection
the fashion system
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 23

FIGURE 4: Photos from the Serpica Naro catwalk show
Both luxury and fast fashion
brands accumulate wealth
by exploiting their creative,
production, and sales segments.
They control the brand, but
outsource the actual work. We
wanted to develop an alternative:
an open-source brand in
fashiona metabrand.
further, we came to realize that it is characterized
by an increasing polarization: on the one hand big
luxury brands; on the other fast fashion. Because
it was so hard for small producers to survive, there
was nothing in the middle. Both luxury and fast
24 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
the Serpica Naro hoax, a subgroup formed within
the Chainworkers, focused on the fashion sector. In
2006, the group created a non-profit organization,
also called Serpica Naro, with the goal of supporting
craftivists, artisans, and makers in collaborating to
create shared e-commerce platforms, businesses, and
online communities.
Our aim is to optimize the ability
of small producers to compete
in the marketplace through
collaboration and networking.
We believe that economic
sustainability can come from
manufacturing garments in a
way that is highly creative and
that keeps prices low without
exploitation.
We began with the concept of intellectual prop-
erty. Realizing that there were no extant examples of
liberated trademarks, we worked with lawyers from
Creative Commons to write a license for the use of
fashion brands accumulate wealth by exploiting the Serpica Naro metabrand. This would permit
their creative, production, and sales segments. They individuals, small producers, and small factories to
control the brand, but outsource the actual work. use the brand on their own clothing. We hoped this
We wanted to develop an alternative scheme, and model would help fill the gap between big luxury
this desire led us to develop the concept of an open- brands and fast fashion while also expressing, in
source brand in fashiona metabrand. a sophisticated manner, the values, images, and
Recent years have seen a resurgence in DI Y trends desires of a grassroots movement that loves fashion
and maker movements.9 More and more people are but wants to produce it in a way that is based on
wanting to learn how to do things with their hands, collaboration and sharing rather than exploitation.
and to know more about the origins of what they Questions arose as to how we could guarantee
buy. Along with this, a new approach to design, that the people who made use of the Serpica Naro
called open design, is taking inspiration from metabrand practiced good ethics. But a metabrand
open-source movements and trying to change the doesnt function as a certification, in the way that
way design is conceived. names such as Parmesan or Prosecco, for instance,
Open design focuses on 9 Betram Niessen, A Path To-
project sharing as both wards Networked Artisans, in 10 See poper.si/en/main.php. 13 See cbs.dk.
Openwear. Sustainability, Open-
a catalyst to innovation ness and P2P Production in the 11 Company now defunct; see 14 See www.ntf.uni-lj.si/ot/
and a way to expand World of Fashion. Research Re- youtube.com/watch?v=_on- index.php?page=news&target=
port of the EDUfashion project, PJdnlaGA. novice&item=255.
access to products and (e-book: Creative Commons,
self-production. After 2010), 13-17. 12 See www.unimi.it/ENG. 15 See openwear.org/lookmap.
indicate specific means of production and quality
control. Its not a top-down designation, but rather
a way to build a bottom-up value system through a
peer network of small-scale creators and consum-
ers, all of whom both produce value for, and benefit
directly from, the collective brand.
With the help of Adam Arvidsson, a sociology
professor at the University of Milan, I began to
develop relationships with European companies
and universities. We wanted not only to see if we
could build a new brand that would be economi-
cally sustainable, but also to bring the ideas that
the Serpica Naro experience had engendered into
a more institutional setting. These efforts resulted
in EDU fashion, a consortium of two companies
and three universities: the Slovenian design studio
Poper,10 Ethical Economy from the UK,11 and the
University of Milan,12 the Copenhagen Business
School,13 and the Department of Fashion and
Textiles at University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.14 As
we researched open design and peer-to-peer fashion,
we began prototyping the community that was to
become OpenWear in 2010.
THE OPENWEAR MODEL
Three shared resources form the core of OpenWears
activities. The first is an online platform where
people can present their personal or collaborative
work and connect with others. The online platform
has allowed us to bring the barter system, already
common among small producers in Milan, to a
larger community.
The second resource is an annual series of proto-
type collections: garments plus plans and instruc-
tions for producing them, all created collaboratively
and in response to a brief that our group provides.15
The result is a common resource for members of
the online community, who can download the pat-
terns and instructions for free. Members can then
produce the garments as presented or modify them,
changing the patterns and re-sharing these with the
community. They can also sell finished garments
directly on the platform, with the community
receiving a percentage of the profits (SEE FIGURE 5).
The third resource is the Serpica Naro metabrand.
Every item of the collection can be trademarked
with the Serpica Naro logo as well as with members
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 25
 personal brands, if any. This enables individual
members, while remaining part of the community,
to create unique garments and lines, for example by
choosing inexpensive or luxurious fabrics depending
on their own resources, tastes, or customer base.
Our aim, in short, is to optimize the ability of
small producers to compete in the marketplace
through collaboration and networking. We believe
that economic sustainability can come from manu-
facturing garments in a way that is highly creative
and that keeps prices low without exploitation. This
vision is described in the OpenWear license:
OpenWear is an open brand a type of collec-
tive trademark that recognizes the productive
role of co-production, engages in strategies that
aim at redistributing the values thus produced,
and seeks organizational solutions that give
co-producers a say in determining the overall
governance of the brand [as well as] the overall
social values toward which the brand should
contribute.16
The OpenWear project is an experiment with two
key objectives. First, we are attempting to define
a new type of worker, occupying a middle ground
between fashion designer and crafter-artisan. We
use the term network artisan, meaning a worker
who is a maker but also capable of setting up a small
business. Second, our experiment involves open-
sourcing the brand and distributing the manufac-
turing process. Our aim is to make social goals
primary and business a means of achieving those
goals.
THE FUTURE OF COLLABORATION
A number of new technologies are now available
that can help small producers succeed outside
of a factory setting. For fashion, this means that
small batches of garments can be produced almost
on demand. The Fab Lab, housed within the
Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Center for
Bits and Atoms, for example, is a laboratory with
computer-controlled machines that enable people
to make almost anything.17 The aim of the lab is
to explore how community can be empowered by
FIGURE 5: Designs from OpenWears collaborative collection
technology at a grassroots level.
26 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
As this concept evolves, similar hubs are opening
in cities everywhere. These maker spaces, where
infrastructure is shared, also serve as co-working
labs where people can informally share industry-
specific innovations in a non-competitive context.
We are attempting to define a
new type of worker, occupying a
middle ground between fashion
designer and crafter-artisan. We
use the term network artisan,
meaning a worker who is a maker
but also capable of setting up a
small business.
In fashion and beyond, new business models
need to be developed so that small local producers
and freelancers can operate outside of the main-
stream system in ways that are socially, economi-
cally, and environmentally sustainable. Collective
laboratories promote this development by enabling
small producers to invest in themselves instead of
expensive machinery or software. Instead of paying
for their own facility, small producers can pay a
monthly fee to access high-tech machines such as
professional 3D printers, large sewing machines,
photography studios, or printers that print directly
on textile. One model for this type of space has been
developed in Australia, where the Council of Textile
and Fashion Industries has created a hub for access
to technology, training, and production in order to
promote business development and the Made in
Australia brand.18
Co-working in a lab can also help small producers
by allowing them to purchase supplies as a group
rather than individually. Fast fashion companies pay
less for their fabric because they buy in bulk. Small
producers could benefit
16 See openwear.org/info/ similarly by joining with
license.
OpenWear or similar
17 See cba.mit.edu/about/ local hubs in purchasing
index.html.
fabric for hundreds of
18 See tfia.com.au/textile- producers at a time.
fashion-hub.
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 27
 Today, people are also exploring new, mixed
business models in fashion, in which they not only
produce but also teach and work in collaborative
approaches to the production and consumption of
clothing. We believe that making things is better
than consuming them through the mainstream
WORKSTYLES
projects. For instance, a carpet-maker in Milan who economy; and that making things collaboratively is
was having difficulty selling her high-priced prod-
ucts is now earning money leading carpet-making
better than making them alone. Finally, we believe
that experimental efforts like these represent the
J. Morgan Puett
workshops in her home. Rather than spending 1,000 beginnings of a new way of understanding and
euros on a carpet, people can spend 250 euros learn- participating in fashion itself.
ing how to make their own. Expensive goods can
thus be sold in different ways: small producers can
avoid retail mark-ups by selling directly, creating
events that feature their products, or opening an
online shop.

Making open-source machines

available to grassroots local
hubs could revolutionize the way
fashion is produced, just as 3D
printing is revolutionizing product
design.

Open-source hardware is another, increasingly

available way to create a large local space at low per-
use cost. A project called OSLOOM (open-source
loom) was begun two years ago as a Kickstarter I am interested in new modes of being in the world, EARLY PROJECTS
proposal to produce a more affordable jacquard particularly in the context of our relations to the
loom.19 The loom is computer controlled and modu- environment, to each other, to forms of dwelling, to I have been engaged in the conceptually and materi-
lar, with modifiable open-source software, making inventive domesticating, and to clothing appara- ally complex field of installation art my whole life.
it adaptable to different needs. Making open-source tuses. Altogether, these relations compose an ethics Even as a child, I dug holes and lined them with
machines available to grassroots local hubs could of comportment, and ethical comportment is a aluminum foil to create swimming pools, and glit-
revolutionize the way fashion is produced, just main theme of all my work, Mildreds Lane and The tered the leaves around my bedroom windows so I
as 3D printing is revolutionizing product design. Mildred Complexity in particular. These projects could gaze onto a fairy world.
Other collectives are working on open-source encompass a working, living, researching, making Before I began working on my most recent proj-
parametric software to make patterns. Software like strategy that develops rigorous engagement with ect, Mildreds Lane, I created a series of large-scale
this could potentially be used to digitize patterns every aspect of lifesomething that I call work- museum research projects and art installations,
and alter them to fit different bodies by entering styles. Being is the practice. primarily investigations into the histories of the
measurements online. needle trades. These works reflected my experiences
With the Serpica Naro hoax as its background in the fashion industry through autobiographical
and inspiration, OpenWear is working to foster new stories intersected with the histories that emerged in
Ethical comportment is a main the form of live, performative installation.

19 See kickstarter.com/
theme of all my work. Earlier in my career, I designed and created
projects/mbenitez/osloom-an-
a series of experimental storefront projects in
open-source-jacquard-loom-diy- Manhattan that stemmed from undergraduate and
electrom; osloom.org.

28 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 29

graduate art and filmmaking projects at the School
of the Art Institute of Chicago. I held dinners,
salons, and performances in these storefront shops.
From there, my research projects morphed from
living-clothing-dwelling installations to a small,
international clothing label, the retail and wholesale
business J. Morgan Puett Incorporated.
I initially sought to circumvent
the rarified field of experience
of the art world, so overcoded by
exclusionary conditions that, as
a young rebel, I found extremely
frustrating. Somehow, though,
I found myself entangled in
the fashion world, yet another
exclusionary system.
During this period, I divided my time between
Pennsylvania, where I lived in a small chicken coop,
and New York City. Even then, I was drawn to both
organic and metallic materials. Having come from
four generations of beekeepers in the Deep South, I
drenched my clothing and eventually the entire ar-
chive of my corporation in beeswax. My entire fash-
ion experience was petrified, preserving what was
and simultaneously transforming into new forms of
being, a concept I am continually fascinated with in
all of my practices.
I fell into the fashion arena quite by accident.
During graduate school, I initially sought to
circumvent the rarified field of experience of the
art world, so overcoded by exclusionary conditions
that, as a young rebel, I found extremely frustrating.
Somehow, though, I found myself entangled in the
fashion world, yet another exclusionary system.
I understand fashion as a symbolic system used
and negotiated by every person on this planet.
Theres no more universal system than clothing, and
fashion involves our very being, so debates regard-
ing the proper place of style, art, and commerce, as
these bear on fashion, are not insignificant. Part of
30 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
my practice is to try to let go of preconceived ideas
about fashion in order to expand our notions of
what it could mean.
I tried to develop an interstitial way of operating,
exploiting the apparent gaps of the disciplines
within which I worked, using my conceptual
toolbox. Ive spent the last 17 years disentangling
those experiences in a string of transhistorical
fashion-related installation projects. These have been
an attempt to slow down the research and making
process in order to investigate the intersections
of fashion, architecture, fine art, science, history,
environmental activism, and other fields. I try to use
the binding ingredients of contemporary culture to
create a more accessible public sphere.
Ive always been interested in the collective. In
my storefront projects and installations, I learned to
collaborate and to attract and engage the public in
an immediate way, which triggered this long series
of projects and exchanges. The concept of exchange
for me is the transferring of an idea or object from
one person to another and the subsequent trans-
formation in thinking, feeling, and understanding FIGURE 1: Manhattan Tartan Project: Phase 1 & 2: Financial Tartan,
Ethnic Tartan and installation view, J. Morgan Puett and Suzanne
that takes place. Exchange evolves from collabora- Bocanegro 1996-2001.
tion, and in these projects, varieties of collaboration
unfold in complex ways, fundamentally influencing
my being.
Part of my practice is to try to let
go of preconceived ideas about
fashion in order to expand our
notions of what it could mean.
The Manhattan Tartan project, a collaboration
with my friend Suzanne Bocanegra, focused on how
textiles convey meaning through conceptually com-
plex semiotic systems. Tartans in particular were
designed to reflect kinship relations and regional
distinctions, and later emerged as sophisticated
expressions of colonial resistance (SEE FIGURE 1).
For Cottage Industry, a project in Charleston,
South Carolina, I drew from a deep-rooted lo-
cal history to explore womens work and roles FIGURE 2: Cottage Industry, installation and performance view. Curator: Mary Jane Jacob.
through tales of womens pursuits at home, and to
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 31
 evoke industrial sites of exploitation by following and responsive forms of sartorial composure. For
garment-making through its history, from the 17th the project, my collaborators and I formed an actual
century to the present, from design to dying to company, based at the Massachusetts Museum of
sewing to marketing. The project involved extensive Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA), and proceeded to
research and extended collaborations with artists entangle ourselves with the museums management.
and artisans from the area. Piecing together missing The complex garments that were the products of this
social histories based on local sources, architectural corporation were at once multiple, multiplied, and
details, and everyday textiles, it centered on the multi-pieced.
creation of a multipart garment (SEE FIGURE 2). Ostensibly, the company existed to create tailored
My collaborators were part of a daily performa- suits for clients. But these suits did not exist as a set
tive installation housed in a small building that we of complete-unto-themselves piecesa jacket, vest,
had brought back to life. Every room had multiple and pair of pants, for examplebut rather as a suite
experiences for viewers to engage with, becoming
themselves part of the production.
The project RN: The Past Present and Future of
the Nurses Uniform (a collaboration with artist
Mark Dion), investigated the subtle ways in which
the uniform, by design, informs notions of identity,
professional hierarchy, and labor within any given
field. As we know, the uniform is a distinctive form
of attire worn to communicate the particularity
of a given group, as well as the specific role of an
individual within a network. Its goal is immediate,
universal identification, registered in specific behav-
ioral patterns in both the un-uniformed person and
the uniformed subject.
The RN exhibition specifically considered the
past, present, and future of uniforms worn by
American nurses. Throughout the space, we at-
tempted to chart the evolution of nursing apparel in
order to explore how changes in design shadowed
broader transitions within the social sphere and the
field of medicine. In particular, the exhibition ex-
amined changes in the symbolic role of nurses and
the redefinition of the professions conceptualization
through its uniforms. It consequently explored the
function of style in the production of knowledge.
The exhibit also addressed temporality by com-
bining historical artifacts with the collaborative
creation of the ideal uniform for the contemporary
nurse, and by projecting tropes of knowledge into
the future to create uniforms intended for, among
others, the Bioterrorist Nurse, the Diagnostic
Nurse, the Post-Apocalyptic Nurse, and the
Intergalactic Nurse (SEE FIGURE 3).
My next project, That Word Which Means FIGURE 4: That Word Which Means Smuggling Across Borders,
FIGURE 3: RN: The Past Present and Future of the Nurses Uniform, J. Morgan Puett and Mark Dion with Incorporated: The Multipled Suit, J. Morgan Puett in collaboration
the Fabric Workshop and Museum of Philadelphia 2003-2004.
Smuggling Across Borders Incorporated, was a with Mass MoCA, Iain Kerr, Jamie Grace and others.
form of business practice directed toward emergent

32 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 33

of quasi-pieces that constantly drifted in form and
composition, shifting and slipping through identi-
ties from jacket to skirt to pants to unrecognizable
attire. In wandering across our bodies and desires,
these pieces would wander across a larger terrain
of possible futures: hopeful futures encompassing
corporate and noncorporate identities, new gender
associations, and alternative forms of engagement.
The three-piece suit became a 36-disparate-piece
suit complexity. When customers placed an order
through the company, we collaborated with them
in an elaborate fitting process, during which they
would hear the history of the three-piece suit begin-
ning with its origin in 1666, when Charles II pro-
claimed that mens suits would henceforth include
a vest. In actuality, all of the projects Ive described
are about collaborating with the customer in some
sense, and moving through an experience together.
All my work is about
collaborating with the customer
in some sense, and moving
through an experience together.
MILDREDS LANE
My current focus is on a vernacular architecture and
landscape project called Mildreds Lane, which em-
braces site-sensitive, event-based, and collaboratively
emergent practices in experimental living.
Mildreds Lane is a 96-acre site deep in the woods
of rural northeastern Pennsylvania. Besides me,
this ongoing collaboration involves the artist Mark
Dion, our son, Grey Rabbit Puett, and friends and
colleagues. Its also a homemy home. This experi-
ment in living has developed as a rigorous pedagogi-
cal strategy: a working, living, researching environ-
ment that fosters engagement with every aspect of
life. The entire site has become a living museum or,
rather, a new contemporary art complex(ity).
The place itself is inspired by a remarkable
woman, Mildred Steffens, who grew up and lived
there her entire life, from 1902 to 1987. For much of
that time, she was alone. Her old homestead, which
34 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
FIGURE 5: Mildreds Lane.
weve made into the Mildreds Lane Historical
Society and Museum, now encompasses dozens of
19th-century outbuildings, site-sensitive projects,
experimental landscape interventions, and public
events scattered across portions of this magical
acreage.
Mildreds Lane as a place is a future preserve that
is in the process of becoming. Its where the creative
practitioner, the student, and the institution have
collapsed roles as we seek to coevolve a new strategy
toward an emergent curriculum. In conversations
among friends and colleagues who teach theory and
practice in a variety of institutions, the limitations
of conventional visual arts programs become appar-
ent. There is an excitement in exploring alternatives
that offer a new way to live, work, and research
collectively. Mildreds Lane welcomes a new age
of curiosity, activating connections situated at the
nexus of science, life experience, and critical artistic
practices. This unusual situation affords participants
the opportunity to collaborate on the production
of large-scale, research-driven art projects within
a truly transdisciplinary environment. These col-
laborations are designed as shared experiences that
may have transformative, lifelong effects on how
we think of ourselves as creative practitioners in the
social and political sphere. The core of the practice
and educational philosophy of Mildreds Lane in-
volves the collective creation of new modes of being
in the world: comportment as commons. All this is
embodied in what we call workstyles.
Workstyles are the result of any practitioners
autobiographical and experiential making, doing,
and thinking process, both interrelational and in-
trarelational. This requires active systems thinking,
a highly intuitive aesthetic sense, and understand-
ing of how things influence one another within a
whole through cyclical, as opposed to linear, ways of
thinking and doing.
We try to make each gesture a
sensitive and sustainable one that
makes way for the next gesture.
This requires generosity at all
times.
Workstyles are activated through creative engage-
ment with the surrounding environment of things,
and especially by working with others. Such collab-
orative relationships grow out of the complex mate-
rial discipline of installation art, which is my base,
but remain theoretically grounded in quotidian
tactics of getting by. Adaptive reuse, re-assembling,
recyclingall are ways to rethink what we have and
what is useful about what is at hand. There is an
emphasis on caring for each other and for the topics
that drive us, and our comportment brings us closer
together in all areas of our lives.
Thus commons is conceptualized as being or
affecting a whole community, and comportment
as commons offers us a way to navigate everyday
experienceat least at the Mildreds Lane site. engaged event based on a democratic arrangement
Comportment here also refers to considering ones
behavior as a constant negotiation with the environ-
ment of things and space, and in rethinking our
involvement with everyday habits such as shopping,
making, eating, cleaning, sleeping, reading, think-
ing, and doingin short, everything.
Through cultivating our attention to what came
before and what comes after, we try to make each
gesture a sensitive and sustainable one that makes
way for the next gesture. This requires generosity at
all times. These turbulent multiplicities of deport-
ment, ethics, etiquette, and above all, hospitality, al-
low for comfort and freedom, opening up possibili-
ties for new types of exchange. Such workstyles have
no beginning and no endthey make up our lives.
The participants at Mildreds Lane, who come
from many different nations and disciplinary
backgrounds, are constantly learning and sharing
workstyles centered around highly charged topics
that are addressed collectively throughout the year.
These topics are prompted not only by those of us
at Mildreds Lane, but also by visiting artists own
projects. Many topics involve expanding notions of
dwelling and sustainability, and transhistorical and
philosophical musings; we usually have a theorist
in residence. Short and dense discursive intensives,
called sessions, usually feature small groups of
students from the most outstanding institutions in
the world. These students, referred to as fellows, co-
evolve workstyles with faculty and guests through-
out the sessions. A day at Mildreds Lane requires
negotiating a leave-no-trace policy, similar to that
of the National Park Service, while at the same time
encouraging interaction with all of life. The requisite
sensitivity applies not only to the landscape, but also
to people, animals, outbuildings, and objects. The
ongoing activation of workstyles, therefore, asks one
to seek new balance and relationships.
Food and dining are central to these exchanges
and, food being a collective event, involve con-
stantly emerging collaborations. Our food projects
have been highly memorable for participants and
guests. Making meals at Mildreds Lane often
involves an algorithmic process consisting of a set
of steps or instructions that create new problems,
forcing participants to allow for dinner surprises.
This process enables an emergent, energetic, socially
rather than a singularly authored or predetermined
outcome. No two meals are ever quite alikenever
in exactly the same place or set up in exactly the
same wayand theyre only as good as the people
who come to them.
Through a series of sessions called Retail 21st
Century, we collectively decided to establish an
off-site space in order to promote a broader com-
munity conversation and experiment on the future
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 35
of exchange. The resulting project, The Mildred
Complexity, now comprises a retail storefront,
project space, production studio, and office in the
hamlet of Narrowsburg, New York, about 100
miles northwest of New York City. The Mildred
Complexity focuses on the dynamics of people and
the production of the spirit of exchange, challeng-
ing preconceived notions of what the retail store can
do. Its about attempting to recondition consum-
ers to retain their critical faculties when they cross
the threshold of a storefront, rather than dropping
them.
Projects with resident artists at the retail space
may manifest in installations, dinners, workshops,
musicalways with community collaborations in
mind and particular attention on locally sourced
food. In this small town, our colleagues are building
a renewable sociality, charged with environmental
activism. Driven by concern for the future, were
exploring new ways to conceive, produce, make,
and do things systemically and interpersonally,
while seeking democratic, collaborative, coevolv-
ing responses not only to the economy but to the
environment. Were interested in the possibilities of
where to situate these practices and actionsnot
only in galleries or institutions, but also in factories,
domestic spaces, or deep in the middle of the woods.
All in all, we remain ambassadors of entangle-
ment and seekers of new modalities of exchange that
aspire to a hopeful modernity, seeking new tropes
of knowledge and keeping in mind that persistence
overcomes most obstacles. In the midst of all this
flux, at Mildreds Lane being is itself the practice.
PASCALE GATZEN (PG) Having been at Mildreds Lane
and having grown beautiful friendships out of my
visit, I feel that the power of the work youre doing
there involves bringing people together who have
amazing energy and want to do something in the
world. Something magical happens, some chemistry
happens, and many projects have come from people
who met there.
J. MORGAN PUETT (JMP) Yes, it is really magi-
calso many intense people coming together
with like minds around topics were all
interested in. Its a bit like a book club, but on
an amplified scale.
36 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
PG Its also doing things together, like making
meals, arranging the table, and so forth. A WINNING FABRIC,
JMP Right. There are no servants; we all
serve each other. The staff is there to fill in A BROKEN TEXT
the gaps, training others, watching over the
flow of people, and explaining the system of
workstyles and how its accomplished. Some Joke Robaard
people come expecting a bed and breakfast,
where somebody makes their bed for them.
Then theyre given a set of sheets and a lovely
note saying, Kindly spruce up your building
for the next person. Its the way we need to
start thinking in the worldthinking of the
person who came before you and the one who
will come after.
AUDIENCE MEMBER Im curious about the entering
and exiting process. How do you choose like-mind-
ed individuals to collaborate with?
JMP Its a wonderful, self-organizing system,
which is the best of all worlds. It started
out with our friends doing projects, then
we began bringing students in to work on
projects. Realizing that we were all in major
museums and teaching at major institutions
around the world, I reached out and asked my
friends to support having students come to JUST WORDS
Mildreds Lane. In 2007, we formalized the
visiting student program. The sentences in Figure 1, from a 1983 issue of the garment encourages the purchase of the dress.
American Vogue, accompany a series of photographs During the early 1960s, when Barthes was research-
of the innovative work of Comme des Garons ing the rhetorics of popular and commercial culture,
design team, Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto.1 fashion was developing gradually into a highly
As Roland Barthes argued in his book, The Fashion structured industry fueled by the mass distribution
System, garments may be read through the details of images. Fashion images needed to provoke fas-
of their design, disclosing facts and norms pertain- cination, fashion texts an appropriation of specific
ing to the sociocultural context that created them.2 garments and trends.
How, then, are we to read this written garment? American Vogue projected a cool, almost distant
The only direct textual information offered by Vogue message in 1983, trusting its somewhat educated
are the words slit and irregular cut-ups. There public to understand. That same year, the Dutch
is no use of typical fashion rhetoric, and almost no lifestyle magazine Viva
2 Roland Barthes, The Fashion
description of the character of these revolutionary reacted to the high System, trans. Matthew Ward
clothes. Still, the words are significant, since in production costs of the and Richard Howard (Berkeley:
effect, language allows the source of meaning to be so-called poverty look University of California Press,
1983 [1967]), 4.
attached quite precisely to a small, finite element
1 Fashion: Steel Yourself! 3 Barthes, The Fashion System,
(represented by a single word).3 The descriptions American Vogue, March 1983, 14.
exist to direct the eye of the viewer: describing 352. Photo: Bert Stern.
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 37
FIGURE 1: Comme des Garons advertisement, American Vogue, March 1983. Text: More of this seasons
changes-one-step-further fashion-from Comme des Garons: a big black squared-off cotton top, FIGURE 2: Front page of the Dutch newspaper NRC Next, May 10, 2012. Headline reads:
matching asymmetric skirt, both slit with irregular cut-ups ... new shapes, new ideas. The Euro Knitwork is Tearing Apart.

38 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 39

with an article under the headline Paris: From Chic
to Seedy.4 Manufacturing holes in a piece of fabric
was immensely expensive in the context of mass
production. Yet the post-punk Japanese style revolu-
tion epitomized by Miyake and Yamamoto explored
all properties of textiles, celebrating them in all their
possible material expressions-transparency, vulner-
ability, unfinishedness. This was in strong reaction
to the glamorous post-war fashion surfaces as well as
the earlier release of mass produced, deconstructed
surfaces. Vogue characterized this phenomenon in
terms of a distinction between two different ap-
pearances: One represents a sleek polished point of
view ... the other is freer, more experimental from
head to toe.5 Viva instead employed a vocabulary
familiar to many of its readers, expressing distrust of
new appearances in almost gossipy terms. Whether
they appear in fashion, politics, or architecture,
words are able to encourage or break down, much
the same way that textiles can be constructed and
deconstructed.
Fashion images needed to provoke
fascination, fashion texts an
appropriation of specific garments
and trends.
BREAKING, UNTHREADING
Wagners 1876 opera Gtterdmmerung (The
Twilight of the Gods) begins with three goddesses,
the Norns, sitting on a rock and weaving the rope
of the worlds destiny. As they pull and stretch the
cord, it suddenly breaks. Our eternal knowledge is
at an end, they lament. The world will know noth-
ing more of our wisdom.6 In Wagners opera, the
world is projected onto a piece of woven fabric and
its history determined through the act of weaving. I
recalled this desperate scene and its animating meta-
phor upon viewing an issue of the Dutch newspaper
NRC Next from 2012. The cover illustration shows
a man and a woman struggling to hold onto the last
threads of a shredded piece of fabric, alongside the
headline, The Euro Knitwork is Tearing Apart.
In the accompanying article, writer Caroline de
40 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
Gruyter explains that the French have developed a
specific word for the decline of financial integration
in Europe: dtricoter, or unknitting.7 The slow un-
knitting or unraveling of the EU systems structure
is occurring, she suggests, not through wear and
tear but through a process of unwinding, as when
a sweater is carefully unknitted in order to create a
new one. But what are the repercussions of unknit-
ting such a complex set of relationships?
Textiles appeared in many fashion magazine
advertisements in the 1960s and 70s; in fact, textile
brands helped fuel the fashion industry. After
the 1970s, textile production almost disappeared
in Europe and the US, as textiles and clothes
increasingly came to be mass-produced in Asia.
Accordingly, advertisements related to textiles began
to disappear from fashion magazines (manuals
for textile production had already disappeared as
people stopped producing their own garments).
Traditionally close relationships among designer,
producer, and user were coming unraveled.
A WINNING FABRIC
In 1993, ten years after the construction of Comme
des Garons torn and cut-up clothing collection, a
winning fabric called Dribbling was introduced
by the Italian fashion designer Nino Cerruti, who
borrowed the term dribbling from soccer to name a
new material that could somehow absorb the quali-
ties of a famous soccer player (Jean Pierre Papin, star
of the Milan team, who endorsed the fabric).8 In
order to produce a mere meter of the new fabric it
takes 86 kilometers of wool thread. Then, an 18-step
finishing process guarantees impeccability and pure
comfort.9 Cerruti explained that Papin embodied
the spirit of the times and the fashion and lifestyle
trends of the 1990s, enhancing the value of his en-
dorsement. Another historical one-man fabric was
4 Parijs. Van sjiek tot sjofel, 7 Caroline de Gruyter, Het eu-
Viva Magazine, March 1983, robreiwerk gaat scheuren, NRC
27. Next, May 10, 2012, 4-5.
5 Fashion: The Contrast, 8 An. Ma., A winning fabric,
American Vogue, July 1983, Mondo Uomo 1993, 98; article
156. derived from information insert
in the magazine (authors
6 Richard Wagner, Gtterdm- archive).
merung (Boston: Oliver Ditson
Company, 1926). 9 An. Ma., 98.
produced by Donald John MacKay of Luskentyre
on the Isle of Harris; his tweed samples were chosen
by Nike in 2003 for a limited edition of trainer
shoes. The company approached MacKay in an
effort to update their Terminator, a basketball shoe
from the 1980s, and made an initial order of nearly
10,000 meters of cloth. Because MacKay could not
produce enough in the loom shed behind his house,
weavers throughout the Outer Hebrides were called
into action to meet the demand. His tweed fabric
absorbs all the colors of his surroundings, even the
turquoise dots exactly matching the color of the
sunlit seawater next to his house. The collaboration
between Nike and McKay received a lot of media
attention and helped establish the specific connota-
tions associated with this fabric. Although you can
perceive a textile simply as compressed matter, a
textiles full meaning always incorporates collective
and narrative elements, such as Dribbling fabrics
connection to the physical qualities and fame of a
soccer star, or the tweed fabrics association with the
Scottish countryside.
Manufacturing holes in a piece of
fabric was immensely expensive,
yet the post-punk Japanese
style revolution explored all
properties of textiles, celebrating
transparency, vulnerability,
and unfinishedness.
SOCIAL FABRIC
The term social fabric is commonly used to
refer to the composition and coherence of society.
Writers, intellectuals, and politicians frequently
make use of this textile-derived metaphor to
describe social conditions, including whether a
community is strong and resilient or torn and
disintegrating. Where does this expression come
from, and what exactly does it mean? What is the
relation between the fabric of a society, resilient or
torn as it may be, and public discussion making use
of such rhetoric?
A textiles full meaning always
incorporates collective and
narrative elements, such as
Dribbling fabrics connection to a
soccer star, or the tweed fabrics
association with the Scottish
countryside.
Plato studied the technique of weaving carefully
before he used it as a metaphor for the organiza-
tion of an ideal state as part of a discussion about
leadership and statecraft in the dialogue Statesman.10
In this work, the character known as the Stranger
explains that the statesman acts like a weaver, creat-
ing a perfect fabric. This conversion of technologi-
cal thinking carries implications for the possible
political and social organization of a state. The
loom not only serves as a tool for weaving, but also
imposes restrictions on the weaver: the warp is able
to expand, while the weft is trapped within the
boundaries of the loom. Warp people are leaders;
weft people followers.
The use of the term fabric as a metaphor for
society has continued in modern times. In the US,
for instance, the writer and urban planning critic
Jane Jacobs famously observed that frequent streets
and short blocks are valuable because of the fabric
of intricate cross-use that they permit among the
users of a city neighborhood.11 In Europe too, the
notion has gained currency that the fabric of
various communities has been torn, a phenom-
enon illustrated by the NRC Next article mentioned
previously.
The bearing of textile metaphors on modern
life coincides with the recent evolution of fashion.
Since World War Two, fashion has become a huge
industry, with its strict
ritual of seasons and
accompanying consumer 10 Plato, Statesman, Philebus,
Ion, trans. Harold North Fowler,
behaviors. The idea of W.R.M. Lamb (Cambridge: Loeb
illusion attached to gar- Classical Library, 1925).
ments, along with the 11 Jane Jacobs, The Death and
power of branding, is Life of Great American Cities,
(New York: Vintage, 1992
now mainstream. Today [1961]), 186.
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 41
 SECTION 2:
the process of developing a
real, sustainable material,
of knowing how to create
a proper surface, is gaining
new significance. Many
artists have started to learn
weaving again, designers
are exploring and combin-
VIGNETTES
ing old and new weaving
techniques, architects are
expanding knotting and
related techniques, and col-
lective knowledge is shared.
Indeed, the construction
of textiles is itself based
on collective knowledge:
almost anyone can under-
stand how to construct a
piece of fabric by observing
others and following their
example. By studying the
structure and binding of a material you immediately of textile techniques, which can be constructed and
encounter the philosophical and metaphysical con- deconstructed at any moment.
cepts that are involved. Suddenly, a piece of fabric In 1983, when Comme des Garons initiated a
series of new proposals for fashion clothing made
of disrupted fabric, they created a contradiction
Textiles create an ongoing in meaning: devotees of punk culture were liter-
exchange between different ally ripping the fabric of their clothes, a symbol of
their general rejection of consumer society, even as
cultural and social fields such as Comme des Garons was proposing ripped material
architecture, fashion, sociology, as a radical new form of elegance aimed at a broader
philosophy, and literaturenot public of consumers. As noted previously, American
Vogue had a hard time finding appropriate words
merely through words or images, for describing these disrupted materials, and opted
but through the character of for a neutral sartorial language instead.
textile techniques, which can be In daily life, the word fabric generates the
same dualities. On the one hand, we have an
constructed and deconstructed at almost archaic belief in a woven fabric: an endless
any moment. dependence on the solidity and strength of a fabric.
On the other hand, theres a common experience of
the decay or unraveling of this fabric, in actuality
seems infused with paradigms of expansion, con- as well as in language. In its common use the term
traction, infill, repair, fraying. Textiles, both as pure offers connotations of binding, cohesion, solidity;
matter and as language, create an ongoing exchange the cognate term social fabric, operating on a
between different cultural and social fields such as much larger scale, is used as an acknowledgement of
architecture, fashion, sociology, philosophy, and the binding of a society. It is hard to describe how it
literaturenot merely through words or images, looks when it is torn. Is there a fault in the weave
but through the open but programmed character or is it just wear and tear?

42 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 43

WARDROBE, RECYCLING, AND
CONSEQUENCE
Interview with Mariano Breccia
and Mechi Martinez of 12-na
Interviewed by Elizabeth Oria1
12-na is a creative platform designed in 2004 by
textile artists Mariano Breccia and Mechi Martinez,
an Argentine couple based in Chile. Breccia and
Martinez work in diverse formats ranging from
costume design to installations, films, workshops,
and interventions on public streets. Their complex
body of work uses recycling as a means of expres-
sion, raising questions about sustainability and the
experience of dressing and eating in more conscious
ways.
Remaking clothes usually involves a process of
recycling an outfit with a green objective, a task
rarely successful from the standpoint of fashion
design. For Breccia and Martinez, remaking a
garment involves more than assembling a collage
of fabrics; rather, it requires the ability to design a
garment that meets the same expectations of a new
piece of clothing created by a designer, including
high quality, a good finish, and the ingredient of
creativitya stamp and a unique feel that Breccia
44 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
and Martinez achieve in their work. For this reason,
they have gained a following, particularly among
Japanese consumers, long known for their design
sophistication. In Japan, consumers appreciate the
exclusivity that a brand like ours generates, say
Breccia and Martinez. They know that no one else
has what they are wearing. The garment also has
another value: it is a recycled piece. Japan is among
the countries with the most developed recycling
systems and culture, and therefore its citizens have
an awareness of the value of what we do.
The couple found inspiration for their 2012
collection, Kusiclos y el Cndor, from Bolivian
mythological characters called kusillos. To create
the collection, Breccia and Martinez traveled to La
Paz, where they filmed a fashion piece based on a
1 Translated by Ubiqus. 3 See www.12-na.com/
workshop-y-festivales.
2 See www.12-na.com/videos/
kusiclos.
contemporary interpretation of the kusillos, using
the look and design of 12-na.2 The characterssome
of them half bicycle, half cyclistgenerate change
and awareness, raising in a new context the possibil-
ity of the body as a legitimate means of transporta-
tion (SEE FIGURE 1).
For Breccia and Martinez,
remaking a garment involves
more than assembling a collage
of fabrics; it requires the ability
to design a garment that meets
the same expectations of a new
piece of clothing created by a
designer, including high quality, a
good finish, and the ingredient of
creativity.
Collaboration is another important aspect of
Breccia and Martinezs practice. In YOMONS T RO ,
monster masks and costumes are created in
interactive workshops from recycled materials,
creating a vehicle for people to explore and expand
the boundaries of the self and reveal their complete
identity in a social environment.3 This process,
termed demonsterate, from monster and demon-
strate, serves as a creative action that is open to the
integration of polaritiesone that does not attempt
to separate or divide what is from what is not, good
from bad, or beautiful from ugly, but simply to
explore and recognize the contradictions that dwell
within each of us. YOMONS T RO operates as a col-
lective experiment involving artists from other areas,
with 70 artists from four countriesArgentina,
Chile, Germany, and Brazilcurrently demonster-
ating (SEE FIGURE 2).
ELIZABETH ORIA (EO): What is your daily creative pro-
cess like? Do you begin with a drawing, a drape?
FIGURE 1 (SEE FOLLOWING PAGE): From the Kusiclos Collection, Bolivia.
MARIANO BRECCIA AND MECHI MARTINEZ
(MB/MM): Our process always originates from
the material we are using: used clothing. The
material available is very important to us, as it
directly affects the type of piece we develop.
It limits us and also gives us the opportunity
to develop a certain acuity when the time
comes to leverage the resource. In this process
we have two routes. In the first, everything
revolves around the deconstruction of a gar-
ment, which allows us to take full advantage
of existing, ready-to-wear resources to make
clothing and give it new meaning. The second
route involves traditional molding: in a more
conventional way, we cut a vintage piece and
use the parts in combination with sometimes
untraditional materials, thus creating a new
piece of clothing.
EO: Where does the inspiration for your creations
come from?
MB/MM: It comes from our environment, our
roots, music, and from the materials we use,
out of which we tell a story or generate a
feeling. Our creative developments are very
playful and free.
Our design and creative work moves be-
tween the worlds of fashion and art, aiming at
a customer who is respectful of his or her en-
vironment and conscious of the way consump-
tion works today. The negotiation of that fine
line between fashion and art is clearly visible
in our workshops and in the research methods
that give rise to the collections.
EO: How do you see your own work in fashion: as
work or lifestyle?
MB/MM: Our work is based on a strong creative
urge, and our lifestyle responds to that urge.
We are in the fashion world as well as the
art world. We do things with love, which is
reflected in our work and in our lifestyle.
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 45
46 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 47
FIGURE 2: Mask-making workshop at Lollapalooza, Chile. FIGURE 3: Piece for a Japanese client. Photo: Nacho Rojas.

48 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 49

EO: Why is Chile a good home base for 12-na?
MB/MM: Of all the countries in the region,
Chile receives perhaps the best used cloth-
ing from Europe and the United States.
Additionally, Chile has a free trade agreement
with Japan, whose stores and consumers are
our best customers.4
EO: You refer to the Japanese consumer as respectful.
What exactly do you mean by this?
MB/MM: We construct highly complex pieces of
clothing using sumptuous materials, some so
costly that the fashion industry no longer uses
them. In Japan, we find consumers who value
items made the traditional way, with skill.
The Japanese value the craft that goes into our
products design and tailoring, and are willing
to pay what they are worth (SEE FIGURE 3).
EO: What is the philosophy and aesthetic of 12-na?
Our design and creative work
moves between the worlds of
fashion and art, aiming at a
customer who is respectful of his
or her environment and conscious
of the way consumption works
today.
MB/MM: We like to think of 12-na as a multi-
disciplinary creative platform but with a very
defined aesthetic perspective. Our philosophy
is to use recycling as a
4 See www.mofa.go.jp/policy/ means of expression,
economy/fta/chile.html.
and from this to create
FIGURE 4: From the Free Guilli Collection.
50 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
through different channels. Besides clothing,
we make installations, videos, textile sculp-
tures, and life-size dolls, among other things.
Our work is diverse; it is a place to unload our
creativity and to promote the use of recycling
as a channel of creative and personal trans-
formation. Just as we use a t-shirt to make
Used clothing gives us another
world in which to work. We are in
the middle: we make clothing, but
more than interposing a system,
we interpose the consumer.
We believe in responsible
consumption and in working from
there. It is impossible otherwise.
a mask, we also invite reflection. We are
extremely attentive to what is happening. We
want to do many things, and we are ambi-
tious. Our desire is to make larger and larger
things, and complex things, a desire reflected
in all aspects of our work.
We do not compete with the big fashion
conglomerates: our work is something differ-
ent, with different resultsnamely unique,
one-of-a-kind pieces. The basis of our work
is not the insane production of money; it is a
project that meets a creative need. We work
hard to provide clothes that are understood
as products made in a sustainable way. Our
pieces have an added value that classifies our
work in the craft rather than the industrial
category (SEE FIGURE 4).
EO: How is it possible to interpose the system of fash-
ion with a practice like yours?
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 51
 MB/MM: We dont think very much about fash-
ion, or style. At the moment of making, we
dont have our sights on leaders of the fashion
LOGO REMOVAL SERVICE
circuit. Our material, used clothing, gives us
another world in which to work. We are in the
middle: we make clothing, but more than in-
Miriam Dym
terposing a system, we interpose the consumer.
We believe in responsible consumption and in
working from there. It is impossible otherwise.

EO: What advice would you give to young designers

looking for an alternative route within fashion?

MB/MM: To implement recycling, relating to

the environment and understanding their
place in it, while still enjoying their profession.
To produce while having a good time.

EO: To close, a dream: what sort of fashion would

you like never to see again?

MB/MM: We would love to witness the disap-

pearance of fast fashion: fashion that
generates misinformed consumers who need
to follow trends, fashion that is nothing but
a fancy name. Todays mainstream fashion
industry leads to irresponsible consumption,
without awareness of the deterioration of the
environment through industrial processes and
disposable products, and all too often profits
from abusive and cheap labor. To never see
this againthat would be our utopia.
I am an artist seeking to engage and transform
extant systems of production and consumption.
I launched Logo Removal Service in 2009, after
replacing two commercial logos on a t-shirt with
colored shapes. Logo Removal Service assists people
who, for whatever reason, prefer to see something
other than a logo, brand, or stain on their clothing
and other possessions.
With most garments, I use a reverse appliqu
method, cutting out and replacing the logos with
other fabric, often in a contrasting color. The shapes
that emerge as I remove the logos are each unique.
While frequently riffing on the form of the logo
being removed, I am careful to leave behind no
trace that might allow brand recognition. Even
when removing a series of identical logos or other
marks from several garments, Logo Removal Service
produces each one individually, guaranteeing an
original new look for each item. In this way, I am
able to use the removal practice in order to make
deliberate, visually formal experiments, emphasiz-
ing color relationships, shape and line. An appar-
ent commentary on commercialism and consumer
habits also inserts fine art values into quotidian and
often-overlooked artifacts (SEE FIGURES 1-6).
Through Logo Removal Service, I hope to keep
fabric items in circulation for longer periods, so they
may be repaired and improved instead of simply dis-
carded. The ultimate goal is to help bring about less
intensive and more deliberate patterns of consump-
tion, while also exploring possibilities for beauty
and originality in everyday life.

52 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 53

FIGURE 1 FIGURE 2

54 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 55

FIGURE 3 FIGURE 4

56 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 57

 FIGURE 6

I use the Logo Removal Service to

make deliberate, visually formal
experiments, emphasizing color
relationships, shape and line.
An apparent commentary on
commercialism and consumer
habits also inserts fine art
values into quotidian and often-
overlooked artifacts.
FIGURE 5

58 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 59

FASHION CODES HACKED,
INDEXED, AND SHARED
Giana Pilar Gonzlez
Hacking Couture is an open-source online atelier
and workshop series that I started in 2006, focused
on identifying fashion patterns from luxury brands,
the media, and the street. Hacking Couture seeks
to empower individuals to hack the dominant
fashion system by making something unique, using
the codes embedded within high-fashion clothing
design.
These original codes (or DNA) of a brand are
interwoven with current trends, cultural movements
and other brands codes. The constant re-mixing of
the original DNA with other codes allows a brand
to have ongoing aesthetic relevance and commercial
success.
Another inspiration of Hacking Couture is to
facilitate the creation of an open-source library in
which visual patterns connected to high-fashion
brands are indexed and shared. Through an analysis
of the patterns (using style magazines, runway
shows, and the streets as data sources) as well as the
60 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
legacy of the brand, workshop participants identify
and articulate the code of a fashion brand, style, or
subculture.
Looking at a brand such as Burberry, for example,
reveals some of the notions that make up this
companys brand code: rain, trench coat, tan color,
tartan pattern, gabardine, and being very British.
This is what Burberry stands for: their unique code.
There are other components of the Burberry code
as well, from cuts to colors to how the garments are
performed in the companys advertising cam-
paigns.
Through visual indexing, we can clearly identify
and define these codes, analyze them, and make
comparisons. A comparison of the Burberry code
with that of the American leather crafter Coach, for
instance, reveals some common elements as well as
differences: motifs which can be extracted and re-
contextualized or repurposed. This is the essence of
FIGURE 1
hacking couture (SEE FIGURE 1).
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 61
 LAUNDRY HABITS
Hacking Couture seeks to
empower individuals to hack the
dominant fashion system by using
Jade Whitson-Smith
the codes embedded within high-
fashion clothing design to make
something unique.

My hope is that through technology we can

create venues to discuss and share fashion codes,
in ways that do not violate fair rules of trade and
that promote making and a general DI Y sensibility.
Audiences want to engage creatively with fashion
codes, and we are finding digital and non-digital
ways to optimize and document these exchanges
through new practices.

In 2013, I decided to give up the use of my washing
machine for one year. I wanted to challenge myself
to question each act of laundering clothes.
Figure 1 shows my previous normal process,
and Figure 2 my current experimental process.
The experimental model has two process pathways,
fast and slow. I have a laundry basket of underwear
and basic items that I need on a fast rotation. Fast
items come into the shower with me on a daily basis.
They are washed in my shower water, wrung out and
then hung up to dry. Slow items are separated from
my fast items in a second laundry basket. When
I have a free day, or the weather is good enough,
I wash my slow items in the bathtub, squeeze out
excess water with a mangle, and hang the clothes
out to dry.
Fast items are continually in my consciousness;
I see, touch and clean them very often. I am aware
of them. Slow items can disappear for months into
my washing basket, only to reappear as if to fresh
eyes. I remember why I love wearing a particular
garment, and the laborious process of laundering it
makes me value the wearing even more.
Since starting to wash garments by hand, Ive
noticed that I now question whether, for example,
a once-worn blouse really does need a full wash, or
whether it could just be freshened up by hanging
it on the clothesline.
It has never been my goal to discard technologi-
cal advances. Time-saving devices such as washing
machines have allowed many people to enjoy leisure
time that would otherwise be taken up by domestic
drudgery. I merely wanted to open up the launder-
ing process, experiment with it, and challenge my-
self by removing some of the tools on which I had
become reliant. My year without a washing machine
has enabled me to develop both new attitudes and
new skills in regard to this universal domestic task.
My hope is that this experiment may encourage
others to challenge themselves, and lead to other
alternative practices in the use and maintenance of
garments.

62 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 63

 FIGURE 2: Experimental Laundry Process.

I wanted to open up the

laundering process, experiment
with it, and challenge myself by
removing some of the tools on
which I had become reliant.

FIGURE 1: Normal Laundry Process.

64 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 65

GOLDEN JOINERY: Theres a crack in everything, thats where the
light gets in.
On Imperfect Beauty LEONARD COHEN
Golden Joinery is a non-commercial, collabora-
tively-developed clothing brand, the outcome of
Margreet Sweerts a series of workshops conducted under the same
name by the Dutch fashion collective Painted.
Started in 2006 by fashion designer Saskia van
Drimmelen, embroidery artist Desiree Hammen,
fashion student Jarwo Gibson and myself (a theater
director by training), Painted works together with
masters in nearly-forgotten crafts like needlepoint
lace from Bulgaria and the complex beadwork of
the Assiniboine tribe of North America. In addition
to preserving old craft techniques, Painted explores
new and alternative ways of making, presenting and
distributing fashion. We seek to develop a praxis
that enables people to (re)connect with their natural
physical capabilities, and to (re)use everything that
is present and given, materials as well as skills and
talents.
In the Golden Joinery workshops, for example,
we invite participants to repair their beloved but
damaged clothing items with golden thread. The
garments emerge with unique, beautiful golden
scars at the points of repair. Golden Joinery
translates the term for the 15th-century Japanese
repair technique kintsugi, by which broken pottery
was fixed with molten gold. Not only could the re-
paired pottery continue to be used, but its aesthetic
value was often actually enhanced by the repair
work. Our practice takes its initial inspiration from
the kind of imperfect beauty exemplified by the
kintsugi technique, reinterpreting it in the context
of contemporary fashion.
At the workshops, in addition to showing
examples of previous Golden Joineries, we offer
instruction in old and new methods of repair. Some
participants want to learn specific techniques; others
wish to liberate their imaginations, often developing
elaborate, jewel-like repairs in the process (SEE FIGURES
1-7, 11).
We have developed not only an increasing num-
ber of Golden Joinery garments that can inspire
FIGURE 1
workshop participants, but also a scenario for con-
ducting the workshops themselves. We use a series
66 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
of invitations, as we call the various prompts and
suggestions we deploy to move ourselves and our fel-
low creators. The ensuing interactions, spontaneous
and playful, imbue the workshops with their own
rhythm and lightness. Spending a few hours in a
Golden Joinery workshop affords an opportunity to
slow down and give attention to something the par-
ticipant treasuresan opportunity otherwise rarely
found in modern life. All participants highly value
the atmosphere of relaxed focus that characterizes
the Golden Joinery gatherings (SEE FIGURES 8-10).
In part, Golden Joinery evokes the question,
Whats new? Adding a second, new layer to a gar-
ment puts into question the monopoly of fashion
labels over the parameters of personal style, calling
out the expressive capacity of end users and giving
them an empowering sense of their own creativity.
The question of newness is of course fundamental to
fashion as such, but it need not be driven exclusively
by commercial considerations. Indeed, Golden
Joinery demonstrates the potential for an informal,
non-commercial collective to start and develop a
brand collaboratively. The future of the brand is
literally in everyones hands (SEE FIGURE 12).
We seek to develop a praxis that
enables people to (re)connect
with their natural physical
capabilities, and to (re)use
everything that is present and
given, materials as well as skills
and talents.
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 67
FIGURE 2

FIGURE 3 FIGURE 4

68 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 69

FIGURE 5

70 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 71

 Adding a second, new layer to
a garment puts into question the
monopoly of fashion labels over
the parameters of personal style,
calling out the expressive capacity
of end users and giving them an
empowering sense of their own
creativity.

FIGURE 6

FIGURE 7 FIGURE 8

72 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 73

FIGURE 9

FIGURE 10 FIGURE 11

74 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 75

FIGURE 12

76 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 77

FASHION 2012
Marc Herbst
Fashion has a capacity to create self-generating
forms of solidarity that can translate specific
cultural positions. This capacity has another word:
style. Fashion 2012 is a proposal for a potential
social project: the design of a recognizable style to
facilitate the identification and development of a
post-economic (i.e. post-capitalist) subjectivity.
The style would address the emotional needs of
individuals and communities left behind by capital-
ist economic development. Instead of answering
these needs with wan affect (the pout of a model,
the empty gestures of punk fashion), this style
would suggest solidarity in action, and consist of
clothing to be worn and shared in recognition of our
common subjection to modern economic pressures.
This style must be distinct from previous fashion
regimes, because it would signify a clear departure
from the limited, consumerist identity made avail-
able by capitalism.
78 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
The Fashion 2012 project would also reduce the
great discrepancy between the American political
and cultural Lefts respective capacities to reach
large and diverse audiences. While the political Left
remains hemmed into a few major metropolitan
areas, the cultural Leftrepresented for instance
by tolerant ideas around race, sexuality and gender,
and support for environmental protectionsis a
dominant force on the cultural landscape. The new
fashion style would recognize cultures success based
on its ability to motivate, distribute and multiply
attractive cultural forms (SEE FIGURES 1-2).
Fashion 2012 is a proposal for
a potential social project: the
design of a recognizable style to
facilitate the identification and
development of a post-economic FIGURE 1
(i.e. post-capitalist) subjectivity.
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 79
FIGURE 2

80 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 81

THE COUNTERFEIT CROCHET In 2006, as an outgrowth of my interest in the
politics of production and consumption, I started
The Counterfeit Crochet Project (Critique of a Political
mistakes in their stitching, thereby corrupting the
purity of the logo or brand that they have chosen to
represent.

PROJECT Economy), a participatory artwork that invites cro-

chet crafters all over the world to create a handmade
The workshops are free, with all materials and
tools provided; as such, they are a friendly and en-

(Critique of a Political Economy)

replica of a designer handbag that they wished gaging way to learn skills and participate in a group
they owned but cant affordand to use their own activity, much like other popular DI Y workshops or
improvised skillsets and techniques in its produc- a convivial knitting circle. In exchange for this vol-
tion. There are no formal patterns provided, just a unteered free time I create an ongoing, dispersed
downloadable tip sheet. Makers choose the item and international collection of fashion goods, a de
Stephanie Syjuco they wish to produce; because of variations in taste, facto product line consisting entirely of prototypes,
skill level, and available time, the final product, with no centralized design direction and no defined,
while always bearing some resemblance to the correct manner of production (SEE FIGURES 2-3). The
original, is at the same time an obviously wrong participants further disseminate their counterfeit
or counterfeit representation of the original. products by displaying, wearing, or sharing their
Indeed these handbags are difficult objects to finished items within their respective circles.1
classify. That each one is a self-professed and blatant
copy is anathema to a fashion system that depends
on never-ending cycles of newness and the cult of
originality. At the same time, the irreproducibility
of the objects, stemming from the lack of a proper
production pattern and from differences among
participants, also departs from the serial standard-
ization that typifies mass-produced goods. The fact
that these are in an obvious way designer hand-
bags pulls them in the direction of haute couture.
Yet the traditionally common and hence some-
what lowly status of crochet as a craft betrays the
bags remoteness from the rarefied world of high
fashion (SEE FIGURE 1).
Initially located online, with a website serving
both to distribute the call for collaborators and as a
repository for images of finished works, the project
has grown over the past seven years to encompass
physical gallery installations, displays of completed
crocheted works lent by their makers, and a series
of international workshops in which I lead how-to
classes in basic crochet technique in conjunction
with informal discussions on ways to reclaim indi-
vidual agency within the larger capitalist world.
Counterfeit Crochet workshop participants commit
to several hours of working with me to create their
own small product: in most cases a simple crocheted
wristband upon which they embroider a logo to
brand it as a high-end
item. The participants, al-
For more information about
most always beginners to 1this project, see www.counter-
FIGURE 1
crochet, inevitably make feitcrochet.org.

82 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 83

 PRODUCTION FLOW SCHEMATIC: PRODUCTION FLOW SCHEMATIC:
Traditional model of fashion production and consumption The Counterfeit Crochet Project
(Critique of a Political Economy)

ideas and CRAFTER

advertising self-styled choices
gue
and marketing photo shoots self-determined ialo
gand d
campaigns take place arin
developed illsh
unique pattern , sk
tips
developed and
designs generated handmade item
and directives sent produced
to factories for FASHION HOUSE CRAFTER project
production information and
feedback sent out
via internet or
physical workshop

CRAFTER

CRAFTER
CRAFTER
COUNTERFEIT
CROCHET
PROJECT
FAC TO R Y FAC TOR Y FACTO R Y (artist)

serialized
mass-
production
CRAFTER
CRAFTER

profit
generated some items
loaned for
and returned
CRAFTER exhibition
back to top displays

visitors attend workshops

and view participant
other crafters learn contributions at
about project by exhibition spaces
visiting exhibitions or
via online networks
and join up
STORE S

products sent
to stores and CRAFTER
CRAFTER
EXHIBITION SPACE
purchased by
consumers nothing is bought or sold; participants
volunteer out of interest and labor is
compensated in exhibition acknowl-
edgements

FIGURE 2 FIGURE 3

84 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 85

TEXTILE DESIGN SERVICES FOR
FASHION: Unpick and Remix
Jennifer Ballie
Unpick and Remix is a workshop I designed and
delivered for a design lab as part of an interac-
tive 2012 exhibition organized by the Centre for
Sustainable Fashion at the University of the Arts
London. The project was commissioned for the UK
fashion retailer Marks and Spencer in collaboration
with Oxfam.1 As part of the exhibition, a Marks and
Spencer campaign entitled Shwopping sought to
encourage consumers to donate an existing garment
from their own wardrobe to offset every new pur-
chase, thereby counterbalancing the environmental
impact of their consumption.2 This campaign thus
explored an aspect of a possible alternative fashion
system, with a focus on reclaiming consumer
waste. The system that Marks and Spencer devised
to take back unwanted or discarded clothing has en-
couraged the donation of over four million items; as
a consequence 1,300 tons of clothing have not ended
up in landfills. The program has also generated $3.7
million dollars for Oxfam.3
86 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
At the workshop, the metaphors of unpicking
and remixing were employed to encourage the
participants to develop their own personal style
through the creative adaptation of existing gar-
ments. Pinterest-based mood boards were created
for each participant before dissecting each look
to unpick their garments. Methods of draping,
folding, and smocking were then identified and
demonstrated as textile design techniques to support
the remix of each garment, enabling participants
to rework their clothing items with their own hands.
The success of the design lab experiment suggests
that such service ideas could be expanded to include
a range of bespoke offerings through further consul-
tation and co-design with customers.
FIGURE 1: Marks and Spencer Shwopping, 2012.
FIGURE 2: Marks and Spencer Shwop Lab, 2012.
1 Marks and Spencer Shwop
Lab Exhibition, curated by The
Centre for Sustainable Fashion
A Marks and Spencer campaign
in collaboration with Oxfam,
May 2012: see www.social.
entitled Shwopping encouraged
marksandspencer.com/fash-
ion-2/ms-to-launch-sustainable-
consumers to donate an
fashion-lab.
existing garment from their own
2 Marks and Spencer Shwop
Lab Exhibition.
wardrobe to offset every new
3 Leon Kaye, Marks &
purchase, counterbalancing the
Spencers Shwopping One
Year Later: Progress and
environmental impact of their
Potential, TriplePundit, May
9, 2013, www.triplepundit.
consumption.
com/2013/05/marks-and-
spencer-shwopping.
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 87
FUTURE DIRECTIONS

In many contexts, the most sustainable solution
involves dematerialization: simply using less stuff.
The Unpick and Remix workshop suggested the po-
tential for exploring ways that textile design might
begin to replace the need for constant consumption
by offering viable alternatives. We must begin to
view a product as something that will forever need
completion, and the designers role as one of facilita-
tion of this process as opposed to the finalization of
a product.
At the workshop, the metaphors
of unpicking and remixing
were employed to encourage
the participants to develop their
own personal style through the
creative adaptation of existing
garments.

NOT E: the author would like to thank the Centre

for Sustainable Fashion, Marks and Spencer, and
Oxfam for the opportunity to conduct the work-
shop within the Shwop Lab. Additional thanks to
Hannah van Grimbergen and Bianca Thoyer Rozat
for supporting the workshop.

FIGURE 3: Unpick and Remix 2012, Photos: Jen Ballie.

88 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 89

 SECTION 3:
CASE STUDIES

90 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 91

THE BROOKLYN FLEA: A Model other places where can you shake the hand of the
man who brined your pickles, or learn the prov-
enance of a vintage acquisition directly from its
packed with people earnestly cultivating a quirky
interest and other people who are happy and
excited to celebrate those people.3

for Counter-Consumption? curator. While money is, naturally, exchanged for

objects, these exchanges suggest the potential for a
Lauren Downing Peters The slow in slow fashion can
also be glimpsed in the exchanges
and interactions happening at
the Brooklyn Flea, a marketplace
that serves as a microenvironment
for buying and selling all manner
of organic, sustainable, local,
repurposed, and alternative items.
Rarely in their reporting on the Flea do journal-
ists mention the retail underbelly of the market;
rather, it is portrayed as a space for the cultivation
of identities, sartorial sharing, and artistic exchange.
Increasingly, however, places like the Flea have
emerged as alternatives to the consumption sites that
have historically reinforced New Yorks status as a
fashion capital. As Fletcher states, in the collec-
tive cultural consciousness, fashion is consumption,
materialism, commercialization and marketing. It is
buying high street and high end.4 Fletcher explains
further that the domination of consumerist fashion
within the fashion mindset means that alternatives
are squeezed out. Other options seem unworkable.5

new consumption landscapeor, rather, a revival of

The rhetoric of slow fashion has acquired a new
sense of urgency in the wake of the April 2013
Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Dhaka,
Bangladesh. While the slow fashion movement as
a cultural phenomenon has largely manifested itself
in the form of green garments and beauty prod-
ucts, the slow in slow fashion can also be glimpsed
in the exchanges and interactions happening in
places like the Brooklyn Flea, a marketplace that
serves as a microenvironment for buying and selling
all manner of organic, sustainable, local, repur-
posed, and alternative items. At a time when people
are realizing that our rate of consumption, even of
eco-goods, is unsustainable in every sense, can a
community vintage market provide an alternative?
Do the lifestyles enabled by the Flea, perhaps, hint
at an incipient model of counter-consumption?
As Henry Alford of The New York Times has
noted, Brooklyn has become a powerful cultural
signifier, a byword for cool from Paris to Sweden
to the Middle East.1 In other words, what begins
some older modes of consumptiondriven largely
by human interactions and communication. The in-
formal conversations and exchanges that take place
at the Flea help to imbue the saleable items with
value, and to foster lasting relationships between
customers and objects. What makes this scenario a
potential model of counter-consumption is the man-
in Brooklynand in particular at the Brooklyn ner in which buyers are encouraged to invest them-
Fleacan in principle have major ramifications for selves in the stuff they are buying, and in the people
fashionable consumption in far-flung corners of the who created or sourced that stuff. As Kate Fletcher
globe. explains in regard to the fashion industry, what has FIGURE 1: Two flea attendees take a moment to pause and play
Purveyors at the Brooklyn Flea are striving to put been lost in the speeding up of fashion consumption foosball.
the heart and soul back into retail by highlighting in recent decades is fashions original meaninga
the channels of creation and exchange that nurture group activity of making and doing.2 Perhaps it is
a consumer good into being. Indeed, there are few in reestablishing just such a zone of local, collabora-
tive production and consumption that the Brooklyn
Flea hints at a possible alternative fashion system.
1 Henry Alford, How I became 3 Adam Sternbergh, Can You
a Hipster, The New York Guess Where These People
Times, May 1, 2013, www. Live? New York Magazine,
THE RISE OF FLEA CAPITAL
nytimes.com/2013/05/02/ September 26, 2010, www.
fashion/williamsburg. nymag.com/news/features/
html?pagewanted=all. establishments/68492. Since the opening of the Flea in 2008, a vibrant
2 Kate Fletcher, The Dear 4 Kate Fletcher, Consumerist
community of making, selling, and trading has
Fashion Journal Alternative fashion: innovation repressor, materialized out of what was at the time a dwin-
Perspectives on Style, Kate Kate Fletcher: Sustainability
Fletcher: Sustainability Design Design Fashion, February 17,
dling flea market culture. Favorable press coverage
Fashion, February 5, 2013, 2012, accessed May 16, has included New York Magazines description of
accessed May 16, 2013, www. 2013, www.katefletcher.com/
katefletcher.com/the-dear- consumerist-fashion-innovation-
the Flea as a cross between a consumer bazaar and
fashion-journal-alternative- repressor. a creative laboratory, promising high-quality offer- FIGURE 2: A seller assists a customer by holding a mirror.
perspectives-on-style.
ings in a stridently low-key setting, and as being

92 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 93

In light of its success, the Brooklyn Flea does appear
to demonstrate the possibility of alternatives to
mainstream consumption, including consumerist
fashion. But serious questions nonetheless remain
about the sustainability of such an alternative
marketplace. Moreover, given that business at the
Flea is still marked by the exchange of money for
While money is, naturally,
exchanged for objects, these
exchanges suggest the potential
for a new consumption landscape
or, rather, a revival of some older
modes of consumptiondriven
largely by human interactions and
communication.
goods, can it truly be an alternative? How different
are these retail spaces from the malls and specialty
shops that support most consumption today?
The vintage market, once a backwater industry
for individuals who could not afford higher-priced
apparel, has moved away from its historical outr
and shabby associations, and become a mainstream
and highly commodified fashion alternative to
wearing new designs.6 Meanwhile, as the slow
fashion movement has become a trend in and of
itself, vintage, artisanal, and bespoke consumption
have to some extent encroached on the territory of
traditional, high-end retail.
Shopping for secondhand goods can create a
certain degree of anxiety in the unacquainted. As
fashion theorist Alexandra Palmer explains, part
of the anxiety rests in the subtle nuances of when
an item is suitably vintage. The danger exists of
making a faux pas and being merely out of date.7
Consumers often rely upon social networks to guide
them, since they are frequently too anxious about
the choices to be made to proceed without various
forms of support and reassurance.8 The Flea accom-
plishes this support function admirably: within its
funky environs, relationships are formed, knowl-
edge is shared, and attachments nurturedall of
94 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
them aspects of the Flea experience on which it is
difficult to put a dollar value.
At the same time, the Flea helps to reestablish the
task of shopping as itself a worthwhile, legitimate
pastime, one in which procurement is but one feature
of the overall experience. Indeed, it has been argued
that the act of shopping for and wearing vintage
garments is only secondarily about [the] resale of
clothing it is primarily about being involved in a
change of status and a revaluing of clothing beyond
the original time period or setting.9 The smart con-
sumer who spends enough time within the vintage
realm, actively engaging with its social networks, can
achieve the status of a connoisseur,10 a status that is
difficult to attain in traditional retail settings.
Yet the Brooklyn Flea remains a site of commerce,
like any other store or shopping mall, thereby prob-
lematizing its claim to be truly alternative. With only
140 vendor stalls available, prospective sellers must
have a credible business model and appealing mer-
chandise in order to stand out among the other 7,000
vendors who have applied for a stall since the Flea
opened.11 Brooklyn Flea co-creator and manager of
everyday operations Eric Demby has the final word
in selecting vendors, making him a powerful figure
in the cultivation of Brooklyns cultural capital.
Demby has proven to possess a knack for choosing
vendors that contribute to the overall Brooklyn
vibe,12 admitting that the vendors overall ultimate-
ly reflect my personal taste in one way or another,
and a certain amount of cohesion has emerged
a look I guess you could call it.13
Dembys curatorial influence at the Flea helps to
draw in customers who are too busy to troll through
5 Fletcher, Consumerist 8 Alison Clarke and David Miller,
fashion. Fashion and Anxiety, Fashion
Theory 6, no. 2 (2002): 209.
6 Alexandra Palmer, Vintage
Whores and Vintage Virgins: 9 Marilyn DeLong, Barbara
Second Hand Fashion in the Heinemann and Kathryn Reiley,
Twenty-first Century, in Old Hooked on Vintage! Fashion
Clothes, New Looks: Second Theory 9, no. 1 (2005): 23.
Hand Fashion, ed. Alexandra
Palmer and Hazel Clark (Oxford: 10 Palmer, Vintage Whores,
Berg, 2005), 197. See also 200.
Nathaniel Dafydd Beard, The
Branding of Ethical Fashion and 11 Amelia Blanquera, Brooklyn
the Consumer: A Luxury Niche Flea Business School, The
or Mass-market Reality? Fash- Local: Fort Greene, April 14,
ion Theory 12, no. 4 (2008): 2010, www.fort-greene.thelo-
447-468. cal.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/
brooklyn-flea-business-school.
7 Palmer, Vintage, 200.
the citys many independent vintage and thrift
stores, while still allowing them to feel that they are
active participants in an alternative sphere.14 In
Increasingly, places like the Flea
have emerged as alternatives to
the consumption sites that have
historically reinforced New Yorks
status as a fashion capital.
an astutely curated vintage market, the consumer
is virtually guaranteed to find a suitable purchase,
given the [diverse] range and amount of stock.15
CULTIVATING MEANING AND SELLING HANDBAGS
Much of what is wrong with todays wasteful and
speed-obsessed consumption landscape has to do
with the manner in which the human labor that
goes into the creation of consumer goods has been
hidden. Therefore, in seeking to elucidate what is
truly alternative in the Brooklyn Flea, it is helpful
to consider the vendors themselves.
Andy and Chery Lin sell restored Dooney &
Bourke handbags from the 1970s through the
2000s. Their booth at the Flea stands out both for
its appearance and for the comparatively high price
of the bags: around $100 for most models. Sellers
like the Lins carefully select and arrange their
goods in order to mitigate potential anxieties that
consumers might have in approaching their display,
as well as to draw individuals out of the chaos and
into their booth. After all, Brooklyn Flea shoppers
are a discerning bunch . Vendors need to make
12 Guy Trebay, Scaven- 15 Palmer, Vintage, 203.
gers on the Urban Savan-
nah, The New York Times, 16 Eric Demby, e-mail message
April 13, 2008, www. to author, April 10, 2010.
nytimes.com/2008/04/13/
fashion/13flea.html?scp=1&sq 17 Palmer, Vintage, 209.
=scavengers%20on%20the%20
urban&st=cse. 18 Palmer, Vintage, 205.
13 Eric Demby, e-mail message 19 Blanquera, Brooklyn Flea
to author, April 10, 2010. Business School.
14 Palmer, Vintage, 203.
an impression in order to make a sale.16 The Lins
accomplish this in part through the descriptive,
hand-lettered price tags that accompany their goods,
which provide an entryway for fostering a relation-
ship between consumer and bag. Palmer explains
that the purpose of such tags is twofold: first, like a
museums object label or catalogue record, the hang
tag authenticates and interprets the vintage mer-
chandise that is, in effect, curated.17 Second, the
tags authenticate the merchandise as rare or special:
here, high-end designer labels are inferred to be
removed from the negative, tainted aspects of the
used garments.18 In contrast to similar bags that do
not include mini-biographies, the Lins bags have an
aura that helps to legitimize their cost.
While Andy fields technical and provenance-
related questions, Chery teaches her return custom-
ersyoung women she refers to as her Dooney
Girlsabout the history of the brand and how
to identify fakes. She is also happy to explain why
her bags are superior to similar versions sold by
neighboring vendors. Through the dissemina-
tion of this kind of information, Chery and Andy
have created a cachet for Dooney & Bourke at the
Flea, placing themselves at the top of its hierarchy
of vendors. The Lins customer base has directly
shaped Cherys market behavior as a business owner.
While her high-end European bags by designers
such as Chanel and Prada have sold well at other
outlets, Cherys Brooklyn customers prefer the more
The Flea helps to reestablish
the task of shopping as itself a
worthwhile, legitimate pastime,
one in which procurement is
but one feature of the overall
experience.
mainstream Dooney & Bourke. This sort of trial-
and-error marketing is not uncommon at the Flea.
There is no formula for success, says Denby. Its
an alchemy of passion, talent, luck and timing.19
In contrast to large markets, the Flea encourages
rapid and informal types of market research that
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 95

FIGURE 3: A seller helps a customer by tying on a bracelet.
themselves reflect the social characteristics of the
market as a whole.
With its affordable $100-per-day booth fee, the
Flea serves as a space both for individual sellers to
pursue their idiosyncratic passions and for seasoned
business owners to test new marketsalthough the
differences among these types of vendors can be
difficult to see. Indeed, in the vintage marketplace,
the borderline between collector and dealer is
sometimes not well defined [since] both deal-
ers and collectors share a sense of gratification
and nostalgia towards [vintage] clothing.20 This
sentiment is particularly evident at the Brooklyn
Flea, whose participants generally downplay the
pecuniary aspects of the market while championing
those who promote community and connoisseurship
among the various vendors and buyers.
CONCLUSIONS
Fashion theorist Nathaniel Beard explains that
vintage clothing allows individuals to assert their
personal identity as well as their affiliation with
particular social and political values.21 More than
20 Anna Catalani and Yupin 21 Beard, Ethical Fashion,
Chung, Vintage or Fashion 449.
Clothes? An Investigation
inside the Issues of Collecting 22 Beard, Ethical Fash-
and Marketing Second-hand ion,456.
Clothes, (paper presented at
the 8th International Confer- 23 Eric Demby, e-mail message
ence on Arts and Cultural Man- to author, April 10, 2010.
agement, Montral, Canada,
July 3-6, 2005): 7-8.
96 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
a quest for a simpler life, [the vintage] attitude also
carries a darker suspicion that recent social, cultural
and political developments are profoundly cor-
rosive.22 The Brooklyn Flea is close to the hearts
of many New Yorkers, who patronize it out of a
deep commitment to sustainable alternatives to
the consumption economy. Yet, given the many
other, similar markets in New York and elsewhere,
the question remains, why Brooklyn? Eric Demby
responds,
We didnt choose Brooklyn so much as it chose
us. [The] Flea is more a culmination of a new
consumption/production landscape [which
reflects] things that are good about Brooklyn and
perhaps show a way to a new kind of economy
scale . When it comes to creating a major
locally grown project in their own backyards, ev-
eryone at the Flea seems invested in succeeding.23
While the future of the Flea, and of the consump-
tion landscape of New York generally, is uncertain,
all signs point to a profound shift toward more
homegrown alternatives. Nevertheless, the jury is
still out on how major an impact on the overall
economy of New York places like the Flea will be
likely to exercise in the near to medium term.
Dembys curatorial influence at the
Flea helps to draw in customers
who are too busy to troll through
the citys many independent
vintage and thrift stores, while
still allowing them to feel that
they are active participants in an
alternative sphere.
FIGURE 4: Two Flea visitors search through a pile of vintage kilim
rugs.
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 97
DISRUPTION THROUGH
DOWNLOAD: BurdaStyle.com and
the Home Sewing Community
Rachel Kinnard
Fashion is not created by a single individual,
but by everyone involved in the production of
fashion, and thus fashion is a collective entity.1
Today, the practice of home sewing can be seen as
a disruption to the mainstream fashion systema
system fueled by fast-paced consumption that typi-
cally separates producer from consumer by great
distances both geographically and socioeconomi-
cally. The online community challenges this global
fashion system by encouraging home sewing, while
also reimagining the consumption of sewing pat-
terns themselves.
Traditionally, sewing patterns have been designed
and produced by a group of designers hired by a
publisher (McCalls is
an example).2 By con-
1 Yuniya Kawamura, Fashion-
ology (Oxford: Berg, 2005), 1. trast, BurdaStyle.com,
2 See www.mccallpattern.
launched in 2007 by
mccall.com. the German fashion
98 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
magazine Burda Style, is a website that supplements
a standard e-commerce channel for the sale of sew-
ing patterns with an open-source pattern platform
for a global audience of home sewers. The combined
commercial and non-commercial approach is help-
ing to foster a community of independent designers,
A practice traditionally associated
with housewives and homemakers,
home sewing is finding new
devotees among a younger
generation that appreciates
the DIY approach to clothing
and fashion.
restoring a culture of home-based clothing produc-
tion that represents a genuine alternative to the
mainstream fashion system.
A practice traditionally associated with house-
wives and homemakers, home sewing is finding new
devotees among a younger generation that appreci-
ates the DI Y approach to clothing and fashion.
BurdaStyle.com has carried the tradition of home
sewing into the 21st century by exploiting the
possibilities of the Internet as a vehicle of distribu-
tion and knowledge-sharing. The average age of the
BurdaStyle member is 33, with the majority living
in the US, UK, Germany, and Australia. A platform
for sewing inspiration and knowledge as well as the
sale of patterns, the sites primary value for users
consists in its archive of user-generated content,
comprising personal sewing projects, recommen-
dations, sewing pattern reviews, and tutorials.
Members can also share their own patterns and
designs by uploading them. The site thus fosters a
more active type of consumption by promoting the
practice of home sewing through the collective de-
velopment of a community-based sewing resource.
It is through the socially networked nature of the
platform that the tradition of home sewing is being
reimagined and made accessible to a wider, younger
audience. Moreover, as a commercial business oper-
ating on a global scale, BurdaStyle is demonstrating
the commercial viability of several concepts previ-
ously found only in conceptual fashion projects.
ORIGINS
Hubert Burda Media, one of the largest publish-
ing houses in Germany, began including sewing
patterns in Burda Style (formerly Burda Moden)
magazine in 1952. The magazine gained prominence
as one the most popular
home sewing pattern
3 See www.burdastyle.com/
statics/about.
producers in Europe.
BurdaStyle.com was
4 See www.etsy.com; www. founded as an initiative
ravelry.com; www.craftsy.com;
and www.instructables.com.
to bring the Burda brand
5 Cutting Chiffon and other
into the US market, es-
pecially among younger
Slippery Fabrics, last modified
November 28, 2011, www. consumers. According to
burdastyle.com/techniques/
cutting-chiffon-and-other-
the company, the aim of
slippery-fabrics. the website is to bring
Through social networking, sewing
pattern distribution is shifting from
a one-directional, top-down affair
to a collective enterprise of home
sewing knowledge, tips, and lore.
the craft of sewing to a new generation of fashion
designers, hobbyists, DI Yers as well as inspire fash-
ion enthusiasts.3
DISRUPTING TRICKLE-DOWN FASHION
Experimental fashion projects question the
hierarchical fashion system by intervening in the
production of fashionable goods. Through the social
platform BurdaStyle.com, sewing pattern distribu-
tion has shifted from a one-directional, top-down
affair to a collective enterprise of home sewing
knowledge, tips, and lore. The website operates as
a social facilitator of fashion, mediating knowledge
dissemination and social connections, with member
contributions enhancing the online sewing commu-
nitys core value. The website approaches the home
sewing market in an uncommon way, merging
concepts already present on the web but not previ-
ously tailored for home sewing enthusiasts. While
other creative project sites such as Etsy, Ravelry,
Craftsy, and Instructables rely in a similar way on
user-generated content, BurdaStyle.coms focus on
the practice of home sewing is unique to its online
community.4
Although free to join, BurdaStyle.com requires
that users become members in order to access many
of the sites features. As a member, one can buy
and download sewing patterns (most are $5.99),
upload homemade sewing patterns to share with
other members, upload photos and instructions of
personal sewing projects, contribute tutorials to the
Learning section (for example, Cutting Chiffon
and Other Slippery Fabrics5), or participate in
the Discussion section. Facilitating a peer review
component, BurdaStyle.com members can also link
their projects to the pattern used, thus creating a
library of user-generated variations on a single pat-
tern (SEE FIGURES 1-2).
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 99
FIGURE 1: BurdaStyles Franzi vest project and pattern page.

FIGURE 2: A selection of member-created variations on Burda Styles Franzi pattern.

100 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 101

 Fashion theorist Otto von Busch has described
traditional home sewing patterns as establishing
a form of controlled action spaces, not primarily
aiming to teach sewing as much as reproducing the
latest fashion .... Similar to the pattern magazines of
today they offered no real possibility to talk back
or form new communities.6 This unidirectional
form of idea circulation is broken by BurdaStyle.
coms interactive functions. Although the site con-
tinues the distribution of professionally-created sew-
ing patterns from Burda Style magazine, its most
valuable asset lies in the community contributions.
When members share their personalized projects us-
ing a particular pattern (such as the Franzi vest),
new possibilities for the sewing pattern are created.
The social-sharing feature of the platform encour-
ages further interpretation and modification of the
patterns, a fundamental practice in fashion design.
BurdaStyle.com members often
reimagine mass-produced sewing
patterns by altering the patterns
in accordance with their personal
tastes and specific projects.
Community members identify with
sewing no longer as just a means
to copy fashion trends, but as
an outlet for their own creativity
and originality.
COMMUNITY LABOR
Home sewing today is an activity taken up through
a variety of motivations. But whether as a hobby,
passion, or necessity, the practice connects produc-
tion with consumption in ways that have grown
increasingly rare in the era of the globalized
fashion industry. In addition to promoting this
self-reliant practice, the BurdaStyle.com experience
engages members in another level of consumer/pro-
ducer intermingling. The site gains value through
102 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
user-generated content, and most importantly is a
community for sharing knowledge and inspiration.
The platform publishes original content through
blog posts and editorial projects, but the staffs
primary function is to foster community growth
and achievement through sharing and learning.
The platform is a place for members to build virtual
identities and social relationships (SEE FIGURE 3). In
her Featured Member interview, for example,
member mollykatherine explains her relationship to
BurdaStyle.com:
Ive been a BurdaStyle member since January
2010, pretty much the day I started sewing
again. I was looking for a free pattern online to
practice with and stumbled across BurdaStyle.
I was so excited by my discovery that I joined
immediately and eagerly got sewing so I could
be a part of it and upload my first project. I am
now an avid member and stop by several times
a day. I find the community so supportive and
informative and gain endless inspiration from all
the other members creations.7
In response to mollykatherines article, communi-
ty member Turtlegirl00 wrote, So happy you were
featured! I love your sense of style and your projects
are always inspiring! Pambox, another member,
commented, Molly! Congratulations on being fea-
tured. Always love your stuff. Pampula wrote, Oh FIGURE 3: mollykatherines BurdaStyle.com member profile.
I loved reading your feature article, it was so fun to
peek in your life and sewings! Everything you make
is so lovely and inspiring :) And Im so flattered that
you chose two of my projects to your top ten favou- ENGAGED DESIGN: THE MARYY DRESS PATTERN
rites, Thank you so much!8
BurdaStyle.com members often reimagine mass- The extensive catalog of
produced sewing patterns by altering the patterns user-generated patterns and
6 Otto von Busch, Fashion-
able: Hacktivism and Engaged
6 Turtlegirl00, October 26,
2011 (4:34 p.m.), Pambox,
in accordance with their personal tastes and specific modifications represents a
projects. Community members identify with sewing
Fashion Design (Gothenburg:
Art Monitor, 2008), 46.
October 26, 2011 (2:25 a.m),
Pampula, October 25, 2011 no longer as just a means to copy fashion trends, but genuine alternative to the popular
7 Molly Katherine, Featured
(12:52 p.m), comments on
Molly Katherine, Featured
as an outlet for their own creativity and originality. image of the designer as genius,
Member: mollykatherine,
BurdaStyle Blog, last modified
Member: mollykatherine,
BurdaStyle Blog, last modified
The platform facilitates the practice of creative home and the corresponding top-down
sewing by encouraging engaged design. In 2008,
October 24, 2011, http://www.
burdastyle.com/blog/featured-
October 24, 2011, http://www.
burdastyle.com/blog/featured- BurdaStyle.com held an open call for the design of distribution system typical of
member-mollykatherine. member-mollykatherine.
their next professionally produced sewing pattern, mainstream fashion.
9 See www.burdastyle.com/ an initiative that further extended the community-
projects/maryy.
driven, crowd-sourced design practices promoted
within the site. The winning design was the Maryy
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 103
dress pattern,9 a personal project shared prior to
the open call that was nominated by members
of the community. The Maryy dress was eventu-
ally made into a free, open-source sewing pattern,
available for download: as of November 7, 2011, it
had been downloaded 29,294 times, and used as the
basis for over 100 new member projects.10 Member
comments on the project include expressions of
excitement about their own version, disappointment
in specific details of the pattern or instructions, and
questions regarding the pattern. Mema79 writes, I
can support DanniiDx. I also had problems with
the instructions and in the end I had to cut 8 cen-
timetres from the bust of the dress so that it would
fit me. Despite these problems I am very happy with
the result and this is a very nice dress.11
By supporting a community of
knowledge, best practices, and
mutual inspiration, experiments
like these promote a more active
style of consumption, even within
the parameters of a commercial,
profit-seeking business.
The ability for members to link their modifica-
tions of a standard pattern through the site creates
an ever-growing catalog of pattern interpretations
and variations. This extensive catalog serves as a
library as well as a source of inspiration for mem-
bers own versions, and also represents a genuine
alternative to the popular image of the designer as
genius, and the corresponding top-down distribu-
tion system typical of mainstream fashion.
CONCLUSION
As the twenty-first century proceeds, the web is
transforming the practice of product development
and fashion marketing, blurring the line between
producers and consumers. Online communities
like BurdaStyle.com can to some extent counter-
act the relentless materialism and consumerism
104 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
promoted by the mainstream fashion system, above
all fast fashion. By supporting a community of
knowledge, best practices, and mutual inspiration,
CHECK OUT SOME FASHION:
experiments like these promote a more active style
of consumption, even within the parameters of a Clothing Libraries in Sweden
commercial, profit-seeking business. This sort of
value-added activity may also represent a hopeful
example for other industries, in which traditional
craft skills and local differences have been replaced
Alessandro Esculapio
by globalized manufacturing and media businesses
that together promote the passive consumption
of generic products. Through the social functions
of the platform, the community reimagines the
practice of home sewing as an interactive fashion
system. The Maryy sewing pattern exemplifies
the kind of community-driven design encouraged
on BurdaStyles website. When a pattern is made
available on the platform, members reinterpret and
enhance the design through their own variations.
The community engagement produced through the
online platform disrupts the traditional top-down
dissemination of sewing
patterns and promotes 10 See www.burdastyle.com/
a more engaged kind of projects/maryy.
fashion that is helping 11 Mema79, July 28, 2010
to restore the traditional (8:29 p.m), comment on
role of home sewing as an Maryy, last modified July 7,
2009, www.burdastyle.com/
aspect of popular culture. projects/maryy.
In the past few years, clothing libraries, like toy and to borrow clothes for a limited period of time, and
tool libraries, have emerged in many industrialized both are open only at certain times during the week.
countries, their establishment a reaction to cloth- Additionally, both libraries maintain blogs that keep
ing overconsumption and environmental concerns readers and members up to date on their activities
connected with the fashion industry. The phenom- and on issues and initiatives related to sustainability.
enon is spreading especially quickly in Sweden, In this sense, the libraries ambition is to contribute
with clothing libraries operating even in small to a long-term cultural shift in our relationship to
cities such as Malm, Ume, and Norrkping.1 clothing consumption, by promoting alternative
Lnegarderoben in Stockholm and Kldoteket in consumption practices and by contributing to a
Gothenburg provide good examples of this increas- democratization of style through facilitating broader
ingly critical attitude toward fashion production access to fashionable clothes.
and consumption.
1 Katrin Srbring and Henrik
Lnegarderoben CLOTHING LIBRARIES AND OVERCONSUMPTION
Ek, Unna dig ngot du inte and Kldoteket were
har rd med, Expressen, April
25, 2013, www.expressen.se/
established in 2010 and While conspicuous consumption was long
nyheter/dokument/unna-dig- 2012, respectively, and ago identified by Thorstein Veblen in relation to
nagot-du-inte-har-rad-med/.
are similar in structure wealth display by the upper classes,2 a much more
2 Thorstein Veblen The Theory and aim. Both require widespread habit of clothing overconsumption has
of the Leisure Class, (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2007
users to buy a member- manifested itself with the advent of fast fashion:
[1899]), 49. ship that allows them cheap, low-quality yet trendy clothes produced by
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 105
big global retailers such as H&M, Forever 21, Zara,
and Uniqlo, among others. According to a study
carried out by the management consulting firm
Technopak, which focuses on the fashion industry,
global per capita apparel consumption will grow
significantly by 2020.3
Journalist Elizabeth L. Cline provides a clear
picture of the current situation in Western coun-
tries, with particular attention to the United
States. Referring to a 2008 statistical analysis by
the American Apparel and Footwear Association,
Cline observes that Americans buy an average of
sixty-four items of clothing per year, a little more
than one piece per week.4 As both she and fashion
scholar and consultant Kate Fletcher have pointed
out, this pace is not sustainable for our planet.5
What needs to change is the premise of the system,
the model that determines our patterns of clothing
consumption. Fletcher writes about paradigms, or
accepted models of how ideas relate to one another
as being the sources of systems, including the
mainstream industrial fashion system. She goes on
to argue that if we influence things at the level of a
paradigm, then a system can be totally transformed
. Fostering this new way of seeing is the ongoing
biggest challenge of sustainability for the fashion
and textile sectorto build a more convincing,
reflective and ethical paradigm that is more sustain-
able by design.6
The Lnegarderoben and Kldoteket libraries
focus on the concept of sustainability by offering
members the opportunity to rent clothes instead
of purchasing them. On the Kldoteket website,
the founders describe the library as an alternative
to the consumption hysteria in todays society7;
similarly, Lnegarderoben was established with the
idea that one can renew ones wardrobe without
contributing to further consumption.8 As Fletcher
3 Arvind Singhal, Clothing Con- 6 Kate Fletcher, Sustainable
sumption by 2020, and Their Fashion and Textiles (London:
Impact on Fibre-Manufacturer Earthscan, 2008), 73.
Supply Chain, www.technopak.
com/files/ITMF_06Nov12.pdf. 7 See www.kladoteket.se/
var-ide.
4 Elizabeth L. Cline,
Overdressed: The Shockingly 8 See www.lanegarderoben.se.
High Cost of Cheap Fashion,
(New York: Penguin, 2012), 5. 9 Fletcher, Sustainable Fashion,
155.
5 Cline, Overdressed, 5.
106 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
a requirement that is clearly of primary importance appealing. It satisfies needs that differ from those
The libraries ambition is to for many people. The key characteristics of fashion satisified by simple clothes, such as the need for
contribute to a long-term as a concept, namely, change, novelty, and variety, protection from the elements. According to Fletcher,
are thus honored by the libraries, but without neces- alternative fashion practices must remain attuned
cultural shift in our relationship sitating separate purchases by individual end users. to the symbolic meanings of fashion in addition to
to clothing consumption, As Fletcher puts it, fashion can, and must, play the more mundane practical purposes of clothing
by promoting alternative another role that helps us both identify the causes of as such:
sustainability problems and cultivate new aspira-
consumption practices and by tions.13 Clothing librar- On the one hand we have to celebrate fashion
10 Johanna Bjrk, Clothing
contributing to a democratization Libraries: A Shift from Waste- ies, as part of fashion as a significant and magical part of our culture
ful to Resourceful, March
of style through facilitating 31, 2010, accessed March
in the sense of a broad (while divorcing it from rampant material
11, 2014, www.goodlifer. cultural phenomenon, consumption). And on the other hand we have
broader access to fashionable com/2010/03/clothing-librar-
are to some extent con- to produce clothes that are based on values, on
ies-a-shift-from-wasteful-to-
clothes. resourceful. tributing to this positive skill, on carefully produced fibres; clothes that are
11 Fletcher, Sustainable Fash-
change. contentious, sustainable and beautiful.14
ion, 117-118. The concept of fash-
writes, the act of sharing a product increases its 12 Srbring and Ek, Unna dig
ionability plays a very Looking at the items of clothing that can be
efficiency because it then meets the needs of many ngot. important role in our checked out at Lnegarderoben and Kldoteket pro-
people.9 Emelie Dahlstrm, spokesperson for the 13 Fletcher, Sustainable Fash-
dress practices. Fashion vides a better understanding of how the sustainable
cultural association Kulturfreningen Kreativitet, ion, 118. is clothing imbued with aspect of the libraries activities meets the need for
which was responsible for the establishment of 14 Fletcher, Sustainable Fash-
symbolic value, which the aesthetic, symbolic dimension of fashion. The
Lnegarderoben, stated in an interview that [cloth- ion, 120. is what makes it so most striking difference between the two libraries is
ing libraries] may not be good for basic clothing
like everyday jeans, but for party clothes and special
occasion wear it is the perfect solution.10 Whereas
it can be problematic to argue in favor of the renting
of basic t-shirts or underwear, it is much easier to
promote the sharing of clothing items that are not
worn on a daily basis. The typical consumption
pattern of such special-occasion garments is a good
starting point for promoting new behaviors and mo-
tives, beyond the consumerist desire for pleasure,
new experiences, status and identity formation
through buying goods.11
AESTHETICS AND FASHIONABILITY
The Swedish newspaper Expressen recently pub-
lished an article featuring an interview with a mem-
ber of Lnegarderoben who works as a spokesperson
and moderator: I go to many meetings and I find
myself often on stage, so I need a large wardrobe.
But I dont need to own everything I wear. I want
to protect the environment and its also cheaper [to
rent clothes] than buying new things that one might
perhaps wear only once.12 The principle behind
Lnegarderoben seems to be shared by its members, FIGURE 1: The Lnegarderoben clothing library, Stockholm, Sweden.
as it allows them to have access to a variety of items,
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 107
 that Lnegarderoben stocks clothes designed specifi- more personal and creative approach to the concept
cally by Swedish brands, whereas Kldoteket focuses of fashion, one that does not necessarily lie within
more on secondhand and redesigned clothes. This the parameters of the mainstream industry. This
difference seems to mirror an ideological difference different approach seems to mirror, in turn, the atti-
between the respective managers and members of tude toward fashion and clothing of people living in
the two libraries. Gothenburg, who are often characterized as being
The attention that Lnegarderoben shows to more relaxed and alternative in comparison to
brands, whether well-established ones like Filippa Stockholmers.
K, J. Linderberg, or Nudie Jeans Co., or upcom-
ing ones such as Matilda Wendelboe and Uniforms CONCLUSION
for the Dedicated, is relevant to its Stockholm
location.15 As Swedens fashion capital, Stockholm With a focus on issues of sustainability and con-
is famous for its cool, fashion-conscious residents, sumption, Lnegarderoben and Kldoteket are
people who, more than other places in Sweden, proving the impact that consumers can have on
value branded clothes and the public, performa- fashion. However, there are more opportunities yet
tive dimensions of style. The presence of a biannual to be explored.
Mercedes Benz Fashion Week,16 as well as a vibrant Members of Lnegarderoben are required to
night scene, are contributing factors to the central wash the clothes they check out before returning
role of fashion and fashionability more generally in them, and the library also reserves the right to
the city. have items dry-cleaned and charge the cost to the
Attention to sustainable practices is the thread
that connects the brands that donate clothes
to the library (this being the primary source of
Lnegarderobens inventory). Bigger companies like
Filippa K and J. Linderberg have signed the Code
of Labour Practices of the Fair Wear Foundation,
an independent nonprofit organization that works
mainly with European companies and their Asian
factories to improve labor conditions for garment
workers.17 The other, generally smaller, companies
and designers all produce their clothes locally on a
small scale and employ, for the most part, organic
materials.
Kldoteket, by contrast, does not carry branded
clothes, but rather vintage or redesigned pieces.
Unlike Lnegarderoben, this clothing library cur-
rently relies mainly on donations from individuals
and redesigners, not from companies.18 In this
sense, Kldotekets activity is less restricted by the
concept of fashionability as articulated through
traditional fashion media. Instead, it promotes a

15 See www.filippa-k.com; 17 See www.fairwear.org/488/

jlindeberg.com; www.
nudiejeans.com; matildawen-
delboe.se/sv; and uniforms-
forthededicated.com.
FIGURES 2 & 3: The Lnegarderoben clothing library, Stockholm, Sweden. 16 See www.mbfashionweek.
com.
labour-standards.
18 On the concept of redesign,
see e.g. www.redesigndesign.
org. FIGURE 4: The inventory at the Kldoteket library, Gothenburg,
Sweden.

108 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 109

 FIGURE 5: Inside the Kldoteket library.
The key characteristics of fashion
as a concept, namely, change,
novelty, and variety, are honored
by the libraries, but without
necessitating separate purchases
by individual end users.
borrower. The practice of dry-cleaning, however, is
anything but sustainable, mostly because of the use
of perchloroethylene (perc), a petrolchemical-based
solvent, as detergent. Fletcher points out how sus-
tainability is a key factor in clothing maintenance,
even more than in production: even though
the typical garment is
19 Fletcher, Sustainable
only washed and dried
Fashion, 75. around 20 times in its
20 Fletcher, Sustainable
life, most of its environ-
Fashion, 80. mental impact comes
110 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
from laundering and not from growing, processing
and producing the fabric or disposing of it at the
end of its life.19 The library could raise its sustain-
ability standards by adopting alternative cleaning
processes like hanging garments in a steamy space
or by providing members with instructions on how
to wash the garments by hand.
The establishment of clothing libraries is a signal
of how our relationship with dress can be explored
in unexpected ways. New attitudes toward fashion
result from a shift of our ideas and feelings, which,
as Fletcher noticed, are usually hard to challenge:
The more radical innovations [in fashion] focus
on consumption patterns and bring the biggest
benefits because they are based on cultural change
and shifts in consumer consciousness, although
they are both difficult and time consuming to
influence.20
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 111
RE-KNITTING:
The Emotional Experience of
Opening Knitted Garments
Amy Twigger Holroyd
My PhD research explores design activism in the
context of my practice as a designer-maker of knit-
wear. Motivated by the prospect of a more sustain-
able and satisfying fashion system, I am investigat-
ing the idea of openness within my practice.
Openness can be explored on a number of levels.
At a macro level, I have constructed a metaphor of
fashion as a commons, which has been subject to
gradual enclosure through professionalization. I see
a lack of making knowledge as one element of this
enclosure, and suggest that an open fashion system
would permit a greater role for individuals to make
and maintain their own clothing. However, I am
aware that the majority of knitters focus on making
new itemsmirroring, rather than challenging, the
linear production-consumption model of the main-
stream fashion industry. Design researchers Alison
Gill and Abby Mellick Lopes argue that too many
sustainable design initiatives involve the production
of new things; they suggest that the challenge for
112 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
the material practices of design might be recast in
terms of a negotiation with those things already in
existence.1 I concur, and argue that the same is true
for amateur making.
I have chosen to initiate re-knitting as a new
craft of use2 and to study how it develops. By re-
knitting, I am referring to a range of processes that
utilize knitting skills, techniques, and knowledge
and can be carried out by individuals to repair and
alter existing items of knitwear. Re-knitting extends
the making relationship beyond original contstruc-
tion and has the potential to keep garments in use
longer. Activity in this
area has been patchy;
1 Alison Gill and Abby Mellick
while there are many
Lopes, On Wearing: a Critical
Framework for Valuing Designs examples of wearers
Already Made, Design and
repairing and reworking
Culture 3, no. 3 (2011): 312.
garments using dress-
2 Kate Fletcher, Craft of use,
making techniques,
accessed August 11, 2013,
www.craftofuse.org. current examples using
FIGURE 1
knitting are limited. Although it was common to
rework knitted garments in the past, such prac-
tices have fallen out of favor. The ability to open
and reconfigure a garment depends on its physical
properties, and what one perceives to be possible.
Although knitting has an inherently open and
tinkerable structure, we tend to perceive garments
as closed and inviolable. Activity is limited by a lack
of knowledge of how to open and alter the fabric
and by cultural expectations regarding appropriate
ways of interacting with our clothing.
As part of my research, I worked with a small
group of female amateur knitters, exploring ways to
open existing knitwear and discussing the emotions
involved; through this article, I would like to share
their experiences, and their words.
At the start of the project, I asked the knitters
about their perceptions of altering knitwear.
My experience of altering things, or dressing
them up, is limited but they always involved
changing the buttons or putting lace on it or
something like that. And it just never looked
right. It was never good enough that you d want
to wear it. It was a lot of effort, and the result
was unsatisfactory.
I cant see it, I cant visualise, I cant imagine
what you would do.
Im not very imaginative in that way.
I wouldnt like to spoil something thats perfect.
Despite these concerns, they liked the idea of
re-knitting and could think of items that they might
want to change.
This is an article perhaps I can do something
with it, so that I can wear it, and it be an inter-
esting, individual piece. Certainly, its not at the
moment.
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 113
 Before starting to work with the group, I
developed a range of methods for altering knitted
garments. Many of the methods involve open-
ing the fabric through unraveling, laddering, or
cutting; knitters have different experiences of, and
feelings about, each of these actions. Unraveling
the deconstruction of the fabric, row by rowis
a common activity within conventional knitting.
Unraveling directly reverses the formation of loops
involved in knitting, and the yarn remains in its
original state, as a continuous strand. Knitters
unravel and re-knit their work in order to correct
mistakes; this might be a small section of a single
panel, or an entire garment that has not turned
out. Some knitters also unravel existing items of
knitwear to reclaim the yarn.
When I was first married, and we didnt have
much money, I used to buy jumpers at jumble
sales and unpick them, and knit my son jumpers
from the best of the wool.
Hence, unraveling can be seen as an integral
element of knitting practice. Although unraveling
is sometimes associated with disappointment, the
process offers the satisfying opportunity to start
afresh.
Ive knitted one thing recently that was appall-
ing, I mean the fit, it was just dreadful, rubbish
pattern. And Ive pulled it out to wool.
Im known as a backwards knitter. Im always
pulling stuff out and doing it again. I cant bear
to be defeated by some balls of wool, and I cant
bear waste.
Laddering occurs accidentally when a stitch is
dropped; for some, this is a worrying experience.
Im always scared, if you drop a stitch or some-
thing, Im always scared its going to run right
down to the bottom.
However, most knitters know how to re-form
a ladder, and are able to use this technique as an
alternative means of correcting mistakes.
The actions of both unraveling and laddering,
therefore, are seen as relatively safe; in contrast,
114 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
knitters generally have a horror of cutting knitting.
If I mention the word cut to knitters, the response is
usually a sharp intake of breath and a look of panic;
more than once I have heard sacrilege muttered
in response. Their horror is understandable: when
a knitted fabric is cut, the structure of intermeshed
loops is disrupted, and it cannot be unraveled into
a continuous thread. Cutting cannot be reversed, as
unraveling can; therefore, it is a more violent means
of opening a fabric.
To explore these feelings, we deconstructed some
knitted garments together. During this process
the participants perceptions of the knitted fabric
started to change. They realized that the nature of
the knitted structure is such that ladders need ma-
nipulation to run, and a fabric cut vertically does
not come apart without vigorous handling.
Its that expectation that it would all fray, and it
just hasnt.
Its liberating because its not all just disappeared.
Theres something subversive about doing this.
Its like a new world.
The experience of deconstruction proved to be
essential both in developing a deeper understanding
of the knitted structure and in building a willing-
ness to open knitted garments. Following the
deconstruction activity, we tried out a number of
the re-knitting techniques that I had developed; this
introduced the participants to a range of options.
The project culminated in each participant using
re-knitting techniques to alter an item from her own
wardrobe; I was able to observe their emotions and
thoughts as they negotiated this new experience.
The knitters felt it was important that their re-
knitting alterations produced an improved outcome;
however, this was thought to be a challenge.
Its a very fine line, between altering something
and ending up with something naff, and end-
ing up with something where actually youve
improved on it.
FIGURE 2
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 115
 I dont want the cure to be worse than the
disease.
Design discussions revealed a crucial issue:
whether the alterations would look intentional and
purposeful. The idea of looking like its meant to
be like that arose again and again in the conversa-
tions. This issue of intentionality relates to a broader
concept of wholeness. During the early stages of
the design process, several participants expressed
concern that their additions might look stuck on.
Another comment links these issues of intentional-
ity, wholeness, and purposefulness:
Weve done things I would never have dreamt of.
Its made me a bit braver.
They also felt good about having been able to
transform an unworn item and return it to wear.
It does feel good (noble perhaps sounds too
pompous) to reinvigorate a rather sad garment.
I feel, sort of, justified that Ive been able to turn
it into something I want. And I shall feel self-
righteous when I wear it!

Yes, as if its meant to be like that, rather than

sticking it on for the sake of it.
The knitters addressed these concerns by using
the repetition of design elements to tie everything
together, making the original garment and the new
additions part of a new whole. When the partici-
pants reflected on their projects, positive comments
mentioned the additions looking like its part of
what its supposed to be and looking like a whole;
they were described as looking interwoven,
blending in, and hanging together.
Following the project, the knitters reflected on
their transformed garments; they were pleased
with them, and considered their alterations to have
improved the original items. They also felt positive
about the activity of re-knitting.
Its been really quite exciting, what you can do
with existing garments that youve got. Just to
turn them into something really original, which I
think is fantastic its quite a liberating thing.
You feel like you can go in and alter and put
back together. Its a really nice thing to do.
I was excited to hear that they would continue
with this activity in the future.
Ive realised that knitting the garment is not the
end of the journey. Whereas before, when you
knitted something, you either wore it out, or got
tired of it, or gave it to charity.
But its no longer the end of the journey, it can
always become something else.
At the end of the project, I asked: What advice
would you give to another knitter interested in re-
knitting?
It doesnt have to be an immediate success. Youve
got to allow for, not exactly failure, but for things
to turn out in a surprising way.

They described feeling proud of having achieved a

complex task.

Im impressed with the way it all works, the

construction of it. I think thats really clever. And
Im quite pleased that Ive been able to do it.

FIGURE 3

116 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 117

FIGURE 4 FIGURE 5

118 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 119

CONTRIBUTORS
JEN BALLIE is a post-doctoral researcher in the Design in Action unit of the Arts
and Humanities Research Councils Knowledge Exchange hub in Swinton,
England. Her work explores social, interaction, and sustainable design for fash-
ion, furthering the design process through service design. Her doctoral research
combines textile design processes with social media to develop design interven-
tions for citizen engagement. These projects have produced a series of service
design concepts and speculative new business models for fashion and textile
design with consideration to sustainability. Workshops have been delivered at
the Victoria and Albert Museum, Marks and Spencers Shwop Lab, and online
fashion retailer A SOS .
MARIANO BRECCIA grew up in the western suburbs of Buenos Aires. During
his childhood,the distant figure of his uncle (the comic strip writer Alberto
Breccia) inspired him. He studied law and communication, and worked at a
radio station for 10 years. These experiences, his time as a garbage collector
while in his teens, his passion for vintage clothing, and the technical develop-
ment he acquired through working with different brands in the textile industry,
all contribute to the artistic textile recycling project 12-na, developed with his
partner Mechi Martinez.
MIRIAM DYM is an artist whose work addresses themes of resource extrac-
tion, manufacturing, consumption and waste. Her current work includes live
manufacturing performances. Under the corporate name Dym Products,
Dym mingles art, design, materials handling and supply chain services. Years
of searching for ways to transform her own households trash production and
disposal led Dym to reframe her art practice, turning it into a functioning busi-
ness whose products and services attempt to re-order the generation, consump-
tion and discarding of material goods. Dym has exhibited her work at museums
and galleries in the US and abroad, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art,
SFMOM A , and the Weatherspoon Museum. Residencies include The Watermill
(Long Island, New York), Cit des Arts (Paris), and Stanford University Digital
Art Center.
ALESSANDRO ESCULAPIO is a student in the MA Fashion Studies program at
Parsons The New School for Design. His thesis focuses on wabi-sabi in fashion,
with specific attention to its role in sustainable practices. He co-editedBI AS :
Journal of Dress Practice, and contributed toJust Fashion: Critical Cases on Social
Justice in FashionandThe Fashion Condition, both published by SelfPassage.
Esculapio has worked as an assistant to fashion historian Emily Spivack on her
projects Worn Stories and Sentimental Value. His interests include alterna-
tive fashion practices, conceptual fashion, and fashion in fiction.
120 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
KATE FLETCHERs work is both rooted in natures principles and engaged
with the cultural and creative forces of fashion and design. Over the last two
decades, her original thinking and progressive outlook have infused the field of
fashion, textiles and sustainability with design thinking. Fletchers pioneering
work ranges from developing slow fashion ideas and practices to directional
sustainability projects, includingLocal Wisdom,which has engaged thousands
of people worldwide with craft of use and post-growth fashion.Fletcher
has over 50 scholarly and popular publications, includingSustainable Fashion
and Textiles: Design Journeys(2008, 2nd ed 2014). She is also co-author
ofFashion and Sustainability: Design for Change(2012). Fletcher is Professor of
Sustainability, Design, Fashion at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, London
College of Fashion, where she has a broad remit spanning enterprise, education
and research. Her strategic leadership within the Centre includes spearheading
its role as co-secretariat to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Ethics and
Sustainability in Fashion at the House of Lords.
PASCALEGATZENis an artist, educator and fashion designer based in New
York. Within her art and design practice, Gatzen produces and facilitates large
collaborative projects using clothing as her main medium.The focus both of her
teaching and of her artistic practice is on relational aspects of fashion, and on
developing reciprocal models of production and exchange.She is an Associate
Professor of Fashion Design at Parsons The New School for Design, where she
has developed and implemented an alternative fashion curriculum within the
BFA Integrated Design program. Website:www.pascalegatzen.net.
GIANAPILARGONZLEZ is a designer and consultant who works and plays
with brands, technology and cultural systems.She researches, analyzes and
(re)maps brand codes and structures to create new user experiences, engage-
ments and products.Within her practice, Gonzlez blurs the lines between
art and commerce, digital and analog, and couture and popular fashion.She
integratesmethods including hand processes (sketching, prototyping, illustra-
tion, book-making), ethnographic research (participant-observation, interview-
ing), user experience and interaction design. Gonzlez has led and designed
user experience projects for brands includingMoleskine, Google, Benjamin
Moore, AOL , Nokia and Coca-Cola. She also develops maps that document
and open-source the codes behind fashion labels such as Chanel, Burberry and
Versace. Her artwork has been featured in exhibits atEyebeamandGaranti
Gallery, and in publicationssuch asWired U K ,Hurriyet,and Fashion
Practice. Gonzlez holds a Bachelors Degree in Architecture from the Catholic
University of America in Washington D.C. and a Masters Degree in Interactive
Telecommunications from Tisch School of the Arts at N Y U. She currently
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 121
lives and works in New York City, and is the founder and creative director of
T EOSA N TOS Inc., a brand and interaction design consultancy.
MARC HERBST is an artist, writer, and co-editor of theJournal of Aesthetics &
Protest (www.joaap.org). He is interested in the expansive field at the intersec-
tion of the environment, livability, and what people make of itthat is, culture.
His work is based on an appreciation of political activism in a cultural context.
Herbst has edited or contributed to 10 books, including authoring a comic book
series focusing on what might eventually constitute a post-capitalist and post-
global-warming style of dress, and a small zine on pre-World War 2 German
youth groups. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at the Goldsmiths
Center for Cultural Studies at the University of London.
AMY TWIGGER HOLROYD is adesigner, maker and researcher, working at the
intersection of fashion, making, design and sustainability. While pursuing
undergraduate and graduate studies in fashion and textiles at Manchester
Metropolitan University and Winchester School of Art, Holroyd developed a
sustainable fashionphilosophy based around craft, longevity and versatility. In
2004, she launched her experimental knitwear label, Keep & Share, to explore
these ideas further. In addition to creating collections of knitwear as well as
individual items on commission, Holroyd runs workshops and participatory
knitting projects in a variety of settings. She also creates conceptual one-off
pieces which investigate issues of authorship and ownership. Holroyd sees her
practice as a type of research, generating new knowledge that can be shared with
others, and potentially influencing future fashion and design activity. Between
2010 and 2013, she undertook full-time PhD study at Birmingham Institute
of Art &Design. Her research explores amateur fashion makingwhich she
describes as folk fashionas a strategy for sustainability. More specifically,
the study investigates the practice of re-knitting: the use of knitting techniques
to rework existing knitted garments. In 2014 Holroyd joined the University of
Leeds as Research Fellow in the School of Design, working on a 3-year Arts and
Humanities Research Council-funded project investigating the role of design in
revitalizing traditional craft processes and place-related products and patterns.
Holroyds work has been featured in many publications, from Vogue to Fashion
Theory, and in books including Sustainable Fashion and Textiles by Kate Fletcher,
The Culture of Knitting by Jo Turney, and Knitting: Fashion, Industry, Craft by
Sandy Black.
RACHEL KINNARD is a fashion journalist, independent curator, and currently
part of the team at the Brooklyn-based fashion brand, BAGGU . A double
alumnus of Parsons The New School for Design, she holds a BFA in Fashion
122 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
Design and an MA in Fashion Studies. Kinnards research interests explore the
boundaries between fashion and the body, specifically with regard to technology
and medicine. Her MA thesis project considered how the social experience of
the female body and daily dress practices can anticipate the decision to undergo
a breast reduction or breast augmentation procedure. In 2013 she served as a
curatorial assistant on Front Row: Chinese American Designers at the Museum of
Chinese in America in New York City. She served as project manager in devel-
oping The BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook, an instructional sewing book published
by Random House in 2011. She is a regular contributor to the online magazine
Apparel Insiders, and a co-founder of BI AS: Journal of Dress Practice. Website:
www.rachel-kinnard.com.
MECHI MARTINEZ was born in Buenos Aires, and has been involved in making
clothes since childhood. By the age of 18, she was working independently,
making all types of garments. In 2004, she began the recycled textile art prac-
tice 12-na in partnership with Mariano Breccia, a practice that she continues to
this day.
ELIZABETH ORIO is a Chilean journalist, based in Stockholm since 2003. She
studied garment design in Chile. In 2007, she founded Prendas Pblicas (www.
prendaspublicas.com), a fashion blog focused on Spanish culture as well as
on Scandinavian fashion design. In 2011, she was invited as a panelist to the
conference, Jornadas Blogs de Moda, hosted by the Museo del Traje in Madrid.
She has worked for newspapers including NEO2 (www.neo2.es), Tendencias
Fashionmag (www.tendenciasfashionmag.com), VA N IDA D (www.vanidad.es)
and C AC AO Magazine (www.cacaomag.comChina/Sweden), and a variety of
Spanish-language blogs. She is currently a content editor for the international
project Fashion Revolution (www.fashionrevolution.org), specifically developing
content for Fashion Revolution Chile.
LAUREN DOWNING PETERS is a PhD candidate in the Centre for Fashion Studies
at Stockholm University. She was in the inaugural class of the M A Fashion
Studies program at Parsons The New School for Design, graduating with honors
in May 2012.Her current work emerges from her Masters thesis, and explores
the discourse of plus-size fashion and the function of clothing in fat activism.
Her dissertation is tentatively entitled At the Margins: Plus-Size Fashion, Fashion
Systems, and Stigma, and is scheduled to be completed in 2018. Peters has recent-
ly published articles in the peer-reviewed journalsFashion Theory, The Journal of
Curatorial Studies, Canadian Review of American Studies,BI AS: Journal of Dress
Practice, and Cuaderno 48, as well asa co-authored chapter in a forthcoming
volume entitledGlobal Fashion Brands: Style, Luxury and History.
THE JOURNAL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES 123
J. MORGAN PUETT is the founder ofMildreds Lane,a combination hand-crafted
clothing line and social practice. Her work has been exhibited at renowned in-
stitutions worldwide, most recently at the MoM A , New York City, and has been
featured inNew York Magazine, W, Harpers Bazaar, Art Forum, Art in America,
World of Interiors, I.D. andThe New York Times, among other media outlets. She
is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, and was named a Fellow of
United States Artists in December, 2011.
JOKE ROBAARD is an artist, researcher and lecturer based at the Gerrit Rietveld
Academy in Amsterdam. Her work spans many fields including geography
and cartography, photography and philosophy, and fashion theory. Robaards
brochures and photographic works, videos, texts, lectures, student projects and
archives are all aspects of an ongoing process of uncovering hidden or forgot-
ten connections between people, clothing, words and society, and of how these
things change over time. Selected recent exhibitions include: Endless Shirt,
Reading Back and Forth (group exhibition), Stadtmuseum Graz, Austria, 2007;
Opera Aperta, Dutch Pavilion, Venice Biennial 2011; Get Real/Real Self, Museum
of Modern Art, Arnhem, Holland, 2011; Does it Work? How Does it Work?
(group exhibition), Goldsmiths College and Slade School of Art, London, 2014.
Website: www.jokerobaard.nl.
ZOEROMANOlives in Milan and currently works on Digital Strategy and
Wearables for the open-source electronics prototyping platform Arduino. She
co-founded Openwear.org, the European pilot project around collaborative
fashion and open-source branding, and Wefab.it, an initiative for the diffusion
of open design and digital fabrication in Italy. Her media-based political activ-
ism has focused on issues of precarity, social production, and labor in the cre-
ative and service industries. She recently launched a Makerspace in Milan called
Wemake.cc, focused on contemporary fashion and design practices. Websites:
www.wemake.cc and www.zoescope.wordpress.com.
STEPHANIE SYJUCO is a sculpture and installation artist whose work often
includes an active public component that invites viewers to directly partici-
pate as producers or distributors. Representative projects include starting an
ongoing collaborative project with crochet crafters to counterfeit high-end
consumer goods (2006-present); presenting a parasitic art counterfeiting
event,COPY STA ND : An Autonomous Manufacturing Zone,for Frieze Projects,
London (2009); andShadowshop, an alternative vending outlet embedded at the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art that explored ways in which artists today
are navigating the production, consumption, and dissemination of their work
(201011). She is currently collaborating with the FL ACC Workplace for Visual
124 WWW.NEWSCHOOL.EDU/PARSONS/SDS
Artists in Genk, Belgium, on a new body of works utilizing 3-D scanning of
Belgian and Congolese antiquities to produce hybrid ceramic objects address-
ing the legacy of colonialism, empire, and trade routes.Syjuco received a BFA
from the San Francisco Art Institute, and an MFA from Stanford University.
Her work has been shown at major institutions nationally and internationally. A
recipient of a 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship Award, she is an Assistant Professor
in Sculpture at the University of California, Berkeley, and lives and works in
San Francisco. Website: www.stephaniesyjuco.com.
MARGREET SWEERTS trained as a theatre director and worked in theatre for
many years in Holland and Belgium. In 2002, she founded SERA together with
Ivo van Megen, specializing in site-specific theatre. With the fashion designer
Saskia van Drimmelen and fashion student Jarwo Gibson, Sweerts co-founded
the hybrid fashion collective Painted in 2006; since then, the group has explored
new and alternative ways of making, presenting and distributing fashion, look-
ing for reciprocal relationships in all phases of the process. The work of Painted
has been displayed in various international exhibitions, and Sweerts and von
Drimmelen are frequently invited to give lectures and workshops about their
practice. Golden Joinery is the latest offspring of their body of work. Sweerts
also has 25 years experiences as a performer and teacher of the Argentine tango.
OTTO VON BUSCH has faculty appointments at Konstfack University College of
Arts, Crafts and Design (Stockholm) and at Parsons The New School for Design
(New York). He has a background in arts, craft, design and theory, and aims to
seamlessly combine all these fields into one critical fashion practice.His research
explores the emergence of a new hacktivist role in fashion design, in which the
designer engages participants to reform fashion from an institution fraught with
anxiety and fear into a collective experience of empowerment and liberation
that helps people become morefashion-able. In recent years, Buschs work has
primarily engaged the politics of fashion, especially in his collaborations with
the Parsons-based research group The Fashion Praxis Collective.Website: www.
selfpassage.org.
JADE WHITSON-SMITH is a lecturer on textiles at the University of Huddersfield,
UK. She is currently pursuing doctoral research that examines human/garment
interactions. Whitson-Smith is interested in challenging post-purchase fashion
behavior, and has delivered lectures and workshops for ReMade in Leeds explor-
ing the practices of repair, exchange, and re-design. She sits on the board of
Leeds Community Clothes Exchange, one of the biggest and most established
clothes swaps in the UK. Whitson-Smith works closely with illustrator Simon
Edgar Lord to visually communicate her adventures through the wardrobe.
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