When I was considering innovation in fashion, I thought of how fast the industry adopts new technology today. I work with knitting factories on a daily basis, am constantly learning new techniques and new ways to put a sweater together. One of the reasons that I love what I do is that I get to see the evolution, one idea building off of another to create something unexpected, familiar but different.
Madeleine Vionnet was one of the great innovators of the 20th century for this very reason. She took inspiration from ancient Greek and medieval sources, but used a new technique of draping to achieve a more sophisticated but similar effect. I have always wanted to try to recreate one of her garments (if you have ever seen one of her patterns, you know why!), and thought this might be a great time to test my ability. Luckily, a friend of mine let me borrow his copy of the Vionnet book by Betty Kirke, which is a massive volume abundant with great background information and some meticulously recreated patterns from extant garments.
The most interesting thing I learned from reading it was that her technique of draping was made possible by textile innovation. Before WWI, most fabric was yarn dyed, which made the yarn lose some of it's twist in the process. With the development of larger dye vats after the war, it was possible to piece dye fabric after it had been woven - resulting in tighter twists. This led to the invention of fabrics better elasticity and suppleness, such as crepe, which has alternating S and Z twist yarn that balances warp and weft- thus creating a better bias.
Anyway, this book is full of illustrated patterns to show how each garment was constructed. I could make this book my only sewing to-do list for the next few years if I was crazy enough! The only issue is... there is absolutely no guide for measurement. So I'll be slowly working on trying to scale up this pattern to fit me. Wish me luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment