Abstract
The body within the clothes: A case study on clothing design practice from a practitioner viewpoint.
By Julia Valle, Aalto University, Finland
Observing dress practices as a field of research is a recent phenomena in exponential growth in which the voice of the designer is often left aside. Aware of this gap, this study dives into the experience of dressing and wearing in search for understanding the ways in which the body materiality is involved in the designer’s creative processes. It explores this inquiry through two path-dependent projects investigated as case studies, namely Dress(v.) and Wear\Wear. The projects make use of auto-ethnographic notations about my personal routine of dressing and wearing to inform the creation of flat patterns for clothes via creative pattern-cutting method. Adopting of practice-led research stream via a phenomenological approach to data, the interpretation leads to a further understanding on how the designer’s subjective body is manifest in the design processes and outcomes. The work contributes to the design community by presenting ways in which research methods can inspire design methods, investigated from a practitioner viewpoint. It concludes with suggestions for future collaborations between academic research and design practice in the context of fashion design.
Author keywords
creative pattern cutting, autoethnography, practice-led research, fashion practice