A 1993 photograph of Jane March by Helmut Newton wearing not much more than a green People’s Liberation Army cap.
The cast designer for Aimer Lingerie, Xu Yanzhen, has chosen the latest environmental friendly material —- a renewable fiber fabric to make the lace of the lingerie much more unique. I don’t really understand why her collection theme was called “Discovery”, but it expressed a uniquely natural and delicate design element.
This was during China’s fashion week S/S 2009.
Off-shore production (mainly in China) is not the most glamourous aspect of the fashion industry. However, I was surprised to find that the production of lace in China goes back further than I had expected despite its western origins.
Xiaoshan, “China’s lace capital”, has had more than 80 years of production history. The Xiaoshan lace, introduced by the Shanghai business (Paris of the East), was opened in 1919 and became the first lace factory.
Yeohlee Teng’s Zero Waste collection
Yeohlee Teng moved to New York from Malaysia to study fashion at the Parsons School of Design. She has worked primarily in New York City and established her own house, YEOHLEE inc in 1981. Yeohlee believes that “clothes have magic.” She dresses the “urban nomad”, a term she coined for her Fall 1997 collection, defining a lifestyle that requires clothing that works on a variety of practical and psychological levels. She is a master of design management and believes in the efficiency of year-round, seasonless clothes. Yeohlee’s designs have earned a permanent place in the Costume Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the late Richard Martin, then Chief Curator, called her “one of the most ingenious makers of clothing today.”
Drawing on the principle of economy in design, fabric and execution, YEOHLEE’S Fall 2009 collection was created with zero waste. Every inch of the fabric is used; not one scrap of material is wasted. Crafted from the most utilitarian of fabrics, the worker group propels the suit into fresh territory, equipping the worker with a modular and functional versatility, a necessity in today’s environment.
Graphite pinstripe sarong
Black jersey bodysuit
Molten metal back mobius dress
Coal 4 layer silk cascading triangles
Black jersey bodysuit
Coal 4 layer silk Val sarong
Black jersey bodysuit
This sarong is also currently exhibited in the Museum of FIT’s exhibition: Going Green.
Graciously donated by Pamela Chen, this collection includes 77 Chinese dresses (cheongsam / qi pao) custom-tailored in the 1930s and 1940s, once owned by her mother Phoebe Shou-Heng Chen (1917-1993). These exquisite dresses express Chinese design and fashion sensibilities, and will be featured in an upcoming 2010 exhibition, That Chinese Dress: Fashion and Identity Through the Cheongsam. The exhibition will explore Chinese traditions, heritage and design, asking such questions as: How does fashion help communities preserve family traditions, identity, and culture? How have Chinese American designers expressed their own cultural positioning/identities through their work? What is the relationship between fashion trends and East-West politics?
Taipei IN Style (TIS) 2010 is near! Spotlighting the power of brands and showcasing up and coming designers, TTF (Taiwan Textile Federation) and TAITRA (Taiwan External Trade Development Council) have worked closely in line with the “Branding Taiwan” policy launched by the government together with the industries to reinvent brands and re-energize the fashion industry. This will be the 5th Taipei IN style with new brands and more activities to present Taiwan’s brand power. Taipei claims the most valuable asset in an enterprise is brand value, but what fuels the brand value is the brand identity.
They showcased “Restart-Londee”, “Top Show China Homewear” (which ranged from pajama sets to loungewear), “Brands Collection Trendy Glamour”, “Taiwan Indigenous Fashion Trend”, “Hong Kong Fashion Designers Collections”, “Academic Fashion Designers”, “Young Designers’ Show”, and “International Fashion Designers”.
Most designers strongly prefer not to have their collections described in one word, but this one did: floral. The metallic accents were a meager attempt to create some sort of “i’m-a-party-girl-on-the-inside-but-i’ve-still-got-class” statement, but as a whole the collection failed to create a brand identity —> no brand power. However, the fashion taste buds of the East differ from the West, and although this collection may not have pulled together to create an identity, it may be salable to the young, wealthy, pale-faced demure young ladies of the East.
“Young Designers’ Show 2009”
The “Young Designers Show” last year was very imaginative, bold, edgy and quite uninhibited. These young designers graduated from Shih Chien University in Taipei (founded in 1958).
“Academic Fashion Designers Collections”
“Taiwan Indigenous Fashion Trend 2009”
Is silk Green?
It is renewable resource, as opposed to a finite material, such as fossil fuel derived textiles, like nylon or acrylic. Silk is the protein fibre spun by a silk moth larvae, most commonly Bombyx mori, to make its cocoon. In commercial silk production some moths are retained for breeding so more cocoons can be constructed.
Being a natural fibre, Silk is readily biodegradable after its useful life. It can go on to produce useful mulch or compost, and hence soil, instead of sticking around for the next 500 years, like most petroleum-based fabrics will.
The vast bulk of commercial silk farming (sericulture) occurs in North Asia (China, Korea and Japan), as well as India, so could not be considered a local material to Europe or North America.
Thousands of cocoons are required to produce several metres of silk cloth. Dealing with so many cocoons is labour intensive work. And although silk is often seen as an expensive fibre, its production remains in countries where low wage rates can be exploited. One European company indicates that they “maintain control over the social and medical aspects in our workshops (i.e. working conditions, child labor)”. Fair Trade silk products are available, but we unaware of any supply of Certified Fair Trade silk fibre or fabric. Not that means it doesn’t exist, of course.
Tussah or Tussur silk, is derived from cocoons collected after the moth has emerged naturally in the field. Unlike cultivated silk, ‘wild silk’ is a darker, browner colour, reflecting its food source, often oak trees or tannin rich trees. (Sericulture, using leaves of mulberry trees, results in a white silk.) Tussah is more uneven, has small lumps (slubs) and less lustrous (shiny) than cultivated silk. It does however tend to be stronger, probably because it is a somewhat thicker fibre.
In Southern Africa there is another moth, Gonometa rufobrunnea that is also harvested as a wild silk. This moth feeds on leaves of the mopane (aka mopani) tree, as well some acacia. It is not not know what triggers the moth to emerge from the cocoon, so the process can not be industrialised. Cocoons must instead be collected from the ground after the moth has breached the casing and has fallen off the tree. Again a labour intensive operation, not overly conducive to commercialisation. Though good for the moth! Mopani silk is also a fawn colour, like that of Tussah.
A German company, Christoph Fritzsch, suggest they are sourcing their silk from “the first certifiably organic Chinese silkworm.”
Cultivated silk needs to be de-gummed of its Sericin content to leave the smooth hand of the raw protein fibre. The gum is removed in a mild alkaline wash. This can result in a 20% reduction the harvested weight of the silk. Some of this lost weight is added in by saturating silk in bath of tin-phosphate-silicate salts. Such ‘weighted’ silk tends to crush and wrinkle more easily however.
Anna Sova sell ‘Eco silk’ products. These are said to be processed only with Skal* approved bleaches (no dioxin), use azo free and heavy metal free dyes, and be finished (‘sized’) with an Indian soap nut, instead of the usual formaldehyde. (*Skal is a well respected Dutch non-profit, that certifies worldwide organic agriculture and production.)
Silk is often quoted as being as strong as steel, for its weight. The problem is that it is used in very fine gauge fibres and thin fabrics. Such lightweight silk fabrics are prone to wear, and are also degraded by exposure to sunlight, as well hot temperatures and the abrasion and twisting that results from laundering.
Obvious not. Because animals excrete the silk from their glands to make the cocoons, and most vegans do not wish to partake of products where animals have been directly involved in the item’s production.
Traditional sericulture normally sees the moth chrysalis stifled (steamed), or boiled alive, so they can’t escape through the bonds of the cocoon, thus damaging its 300m to 1,000+m of continuous filament, which is usually then ‘reeled’ or ‘spooled’ off.
Peace Silk and Ahimsa (non-violence) Silk are commercial processes between sericulture and wild silk. They do allow the mulberry fed moth to leave the cocoon before it is harvested. They are more expensive.
Using ‘wild silk’ does allow the moth to emerge unharmed, although the resulting much shorter broken threads (about 10-15cm) have to then be ‘spun’ into yarn. (Yields are obviously lower than cultivated silk, with correspondingly higher prices.)