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- Title of Abstract:
Craft persons address unknown: the shifting spaces of making millinery (Ref #135)
- Date:
- 29-09-2006 01:26:47
- Status:
-
Accepted with revisions
- Rating:
- 6
-
Details:
- The impact of computer processes on the area of designing and making, including the disciplines of architecture, engineering and industrial design cannot be denied, but where are fashion and millinery situated in this digital age? And where could they be?
The hat is a three dimensional product designed for the body. It has been designed and made in three dimensions, simultaneously on a hat block using hand craft techniques, as opposed to many contemporary fashion practices which often separate designing from making in the ideation process.
Computer software designed for fashion is skewed towards the technical processes of pattern making and cutting and replicates two dimensional paper based methods. Three dimensional fashion software exists in the form of components, systems and rules for the designer to follow. These conventions are not in keeping with the distinctive qualities of a designer (Cross ) or to the ?hunch? (Rosenberg 2000 ; Seago, 1994 ). The softwares appear uninspiring and unintuitive lacking the distinctive characteristic of the hand that is the designers signature, the individual is homogenised, the craft is removed, the software writer is the author of the design by default.
This need not be the case, the shifting practices of architecture (Burry, 2006 ), industrial design and engineering have modelled successful uses of digital technology in the ideation processes. This paper discusses a practice based research project which is framed by a constructivist method and a phenomenological approach. Through this project the practice of making millinery is relocated, the rules and safeguards are broken and the researcher goes into uncharted territory through using methods and processes of non fashion specific technologies. Like the design process, this research project is not a linear process; it is a multidimensional event with interlinking themes and foci.
It was discovered that the ideation is implicitly linked to making. Physical experiences influence the computer and visa versa, furthermore technical or making and conceptual or designing issues cannot be separated by this researcher. Technologies used in this study can be considered to be both mechanisms and materials, and used in three dimensional computer spaces and physical spaces continue to inform the process of designing and making through constant flow of knowledge and understanding.
When making millinery using non traditional methods and processes the demarcation line between the physical and computer is undefined, this nebulous space is celebrated as an opportunity to move the craft and making of millinery to a new location. The ideal working space for the milliner is fluid, the craft persons address unknown.
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