1) Finalize your final project project idea + work plan. Narrow your three ideas into one final idea. Then, answer the following on your LP:
1) What is your project idea and why do you want to make it? Describe how this design/object/idea will specifically help YOU (make sure it is designed for you, not someone else, or an anonymous user) be more resilient and navigate environmental change over the next 50 years.
For my final project I want to make multifunctional and adaptable tshirt to various sizes. My first inspiration was to make a clothing that can have different functions instead of only covering the body from weather but also to be able to satisfy someone’s needs by being able to carry around things inside the pocket. Therefore, by making one garment multifunctional it decreases our consumption by satisfying multiple needs with one object. Moreover, my attempt is also to make the user to think about the different ways in which a garment can be used in different ways. Then, I thought about how to make a t shirt adaptable to be usable for over 50 years, so the limited aspect of a t-shirt is the size. In this way, I design a way in which the garment can get bigger and looser as the years pass by adding laces on the sides of the bodice. Finally, I thought about my materials. First, I thought about making my own fabric out of recycle muslin and paper pattern. However, researching on techniques and ways of making fabric the only thing I found was how to make “paper fabric” which I believe would be really stiff and unconfortable as a garment. For this reason I came to the conclusion that another way of using recycle fabric instead of buying new one is to use fabrics scraps from other students from the school and therefore not making more waste but reusing materials.
I think this design makes me more resilient not only the way I consume but also thinking and analyzing in how many different ways I can use one specific garment or how many functions can a garment has. Moreover, I think also the way the garment is resilient to get bigger as the years pass depending on the changes of my body is a meningful adaptation, becoming like our second skin that must adapt to ourselves. In this way, taking that comparison, the way the garment adapts to the body is how the human being needs to adapt to the changes and significant evolution that the world is having. I believe that is learning to coexist.
The reason why I need and want to create this garment for me is because after my observation about garments. I came to the conclusion that sometimes I stopped using a tshirt or any garment because it didnt fit me anymore. For this reason, the size of a garment I consider to be something that limits you to keep a shirt for over 50 years. I remember walking through the closet of my mother where she keeps her clothes even from when she just got married with my dad. I asked her if that clothes fits her now but she told me they didn’t but she wanted to keep it as a memory from her past. So after thinking about my limitation of sizes on making impossible to use a shirt for over 10 years even and the reason why my mom is keeping his clothes as memory but not as the function they were created for, I came up with the idea of making a tshirt for me that would fit me as the years pass by being resilient and adaptable to my body. Therefore, I believe this shirt will be a visual and tangible memory of my years of colleges which I will remember every time while using it for over 50 years.
Sleeve prototype done for Design Studio class.
2) Describe your work plan for the next month.
For the first 2 weeks I will focus on the gathering enough scraps to construct a long yard and then start sewing the t shirt with the sleeves. Then for the next week I will focus on the documentation of my project, finding a model, a place for the photo shoot. Finally, I will focus and finish all the documentation like the systems map along with editing and finishing up the photos.
3) How will you source materials?
I will look for recycle muslin and fabric scraps around the school which I believe I will find enough to sew them together and create yard and a half or two.
4) How does your project specifically encourage resiliency or use resilient materials?
I think my project encourages resiliency in two different ways. First, by showing how a garment is flexible and manageable by acquiring multiple functions like being a handbag or a multiple pockets that can serve as handbag. Secondly, how the garment is able to adapt and change according to the changes that the body has, like getting bigger. In this way, the size and construction of the garment will not be a limitation or issue for being able to be used for over 50 years. Finally, the materials that I used encourages also resiliency by giving a “second life” to fabric scraps, muslin and as part of an actual garment. Therefore, instead of buying a new fabric, or confection a fabric from scrap and generating more waste and pollution, it only requires fewer systems and actually help to reduce the amount of waste the fashion industry generates.
5) How will it be repaired?
The repair for my design is very simple and easy. Since the main material that I am using are scraps of recycled fabric, the way in which the garment can be repair if it gets a hole or something similar is to sew a patch on top of it. In this way, this will go along with the idea of using recycled fabric, it involves less systems and it doesn’t generate more waste. Moreover, for the laces “braid” is the same technique, if the braid get damage, you can attach another piece of fabric and create the braid from the point it was damaged.
2) Explore articles published in the New York Times within the last month in the “Climate and Environment Section”
1) What was the most interesting visual that you found (photograph, diagram etc.) and why was it so powerful to you? Include the image and the link in your post.
While I was scrolling to look for the different news in the last month, I saw a photo of the video about “floating schools in Bangladesh”. It shocked me when I read the title of the video and saw the children’s going inside a canoe to have class. Moreover, just a week ago I had to watch a documentary named “The True Cost” which also shows the poor conditions and all the environmental and human consequences Bangladesh people have had due to the fashion industry. For this reason, learning another aspect of that country like education, makes me wonder and imagine their conditions affected by climate change in 50 years or less from now.
https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/100000005429536/floating-schools-in-bangladesh-floods.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fclimate&action=click&contentCollection=climate®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront
2) Given what you learned in this article, how different do you think the planet be 50 years from now?
I believe that children in Bangladesh are having floating schools due to their extreme poor condition and their vulnerability to climate change and rising sea levels due to the fact that Bangladesh is surrounded rivers. Likewise, I believe that this solution of making floating schools might be applied in other countries as the water levels keep rising and threatening cities structures and systems. Therefore, I think the planet will have some significant changes on the structure of cities and the way things are now, like instead of being a building school, to be a boat that serve as transportation and a school house, adapting to the environment changes.
3) In what ways do you think these realities will impact your work and life 50 years from now?
I think this will impact many aspects of my life, but the main aspect will be transportation and therefore, my lifestyle. Because of the rising of sea levels many thing will change specially the structures of cities, just like we are living now by building the “Big U” in Manhattan. And, by changing my transportation, it changes directly the way I perceive and live life, like for example, looking things from a different perspective.
4) How might your Long Life Design final project address, acknowledge and/or work with such climate related changes over the next 50 years?
I think my long life design final project address in a direct way climate changes. As the society keeps demanding more and more fashion items, and keep consuming products in a disposable way, cotton farmers and textile producers need to keep up with this demands. Therefore, now we are experiencing the cotton that is genetically modified for being able to fulfill the growth for the demand. Moreover, cotton, which is the most used component of fabric, needs 2,700 litres of water to make one t-shirt, which is what a person would drink in 2 and half years. For this reason, by making a garment out of scraps and refusing the “waste” that the fashion industry produce is helping to counteract and decrease the amount of waste that pollutes systems like water, soil and air. Finally, considering that water is a non-renewable resource, is essential and I believe important for designer to think about how can we give the importance it should and what can we do to make people care more about that resource which without we cant live.
