Textiles as Material Gestalt: Cloth as a Catalyst in the Co-designing Process

Abstract

Textiles is the common language within Emotional Fit, a collaborative research project investigating a person-centred, sustainable approach to fashion for an ageing female demographic (55+). Through the co-designing of a collection of research tools, textiles have acted as a material gestalt for exploring our research participants’ identities by tracing their embodied knowledge of fashionable dress. The methodology merges interpretative phenomenological analysis, co-design and a simultaneous approach to textile and garment design. Based on an enhanced understanding of our participants textile preferences, particular fabric qualities have catalysed silhouettes, through live draping and geometric pattern cutting to accommodate multiple body shapes and customisation. Printed textiles have also been digitally crafted in response to the contours of the garment and body and personal narratives of wear. Sensorial and tactile interactions have informed the engineering and scaling of patterns within zero-waste volumes. The article considers the functional and aesthetic role of textiles through the co-creative development of printed garment prototypes that explore the physical and emotional aspects of fashion and ageing. Within the practice-led research, emphasis is placed on the participants involvement through manipulating and animating emerging textile and dress objects. The collaborative exchange draws on fundamental connections between dress and personal identity, utilizing cloth to mediate material and individual agency. The methodology seeks to capture and enact values attributed to material engagement through body-cloth dialogue. By reflecting on the longevity of particular items of dress we investigate how textile attachment can inform emotionally durable fashion solutions.

Keywords:

• participatory research
• embodied knowledge
• co-creation
• emotional fit
• textile attachment
• material engagement

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our research collaborators, Juliana Sissons, Katherine Harrigan, Katherine West and all the women from Nottingham involved in the project.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katherine Townsend

Katherine Townsend is an associate professor in Fashion and Textile Crafts in the School of Art and Design at Nottingham Trent University. She has a background in the fashion and textile industry where she co-directed two independent labels based and worked as a freelance designer. Her current research projects, “Emotional Fit: Developing a new fashion methodology with mature women” and “The Electric Corset and Other Future Histories”, explore material and cultural issues in fashion, textiles and ageing and the use of costume archives to inform the design of e-textiles and wearables. Her research into the role of embodied knowledge in the digital crafting of textiles was recently published in the chapter Closely Held Secrets, in Crafting Textiles in the Digital Age (Bloomsbury 2016). She is co-editor of the journal of Craft Research, Intellect.

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Ania Sadkowska

Ania Sadkowska is a fashion designer, lecturer and researcher at Coventry University, United Kingdom. In the past, she worked as a Lecturer and Research Fellow at Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom. Her research explores the intersection of sociology and psychology with art and design practices. Current projects span a variety of topics including fashion and ageing, masculinity, phenomenology, and art and design research methodologies. Ania has presented work at various UK and international conferences and exhibitions including Italy, China, Sweden and United States. Recently her research paper has been published in the Age, Culture, Humanities: An Interdisciplinary Journal (special issue on Fashion and Ageing). Since 2014, she has been involved in a co-creative research project titled “Emotional Fit: Developing a new fashion methodology with older women”.

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