Project manager: Christiane Luible

Research area: Matériaux, matérialités, matérialisations (Materials, materiality and materialization)

Duration: 
2013 – 2015

Financing:
 HES.SO

In Fashion ever-new garments are designed to cover up, to reveal or to accentuate the human body. To this day, new forms are sought for the erect body. Nowadays, simulation applications allow testing the garment fit in motion. This novel approach for fashion design incorporates a high potential for aesthetically and functional innovations. This project aims to generate new knowledge about the garment fit in motion and to innovate existing assessments and flat pattern methods. In Fashion Design, clothing can be understood as envelop or “second skin” for the complex 3D shape of the human body. In the search for ever-new forms of body envelopes various flat pattern design methods (see technical terms annex) and 3D fabric drape methods have been developed and refined. Emerging pieces of clothing serve to cover up, to reveal or to accentuate the body or parts of the body. In fashion history, various epochs of styles are characterized by certain ways to envelope the body (medieval dress, belle époque, new look, glam rock, etc.). Our current time is characterized by a plurality of co-existing styles, where each look has a different idea about the garment “fit” : baggy pants have to be too large, shape wear has to be too tight and a formal men suit ideally has to be tailored made to measure to the body. There is, however, one characteristic that all different kinds of pieces of clothing have, over time or of all styles, in common : Their 2D flat pattern and their 3D garment shape is developed for an upright standing body.