BRAIN/Storm Activity

Fashion is one of my greatest interests and I would consider it an art form. I wrote about this in the hive document but I am no designer. I love the fabric and the story some designers like to paint and all the creativity that goes into each piece a designer puts out. I am fascinated with designers using different materials other than fabric for pieces. One of my favorite designers, Iris van Herpen, uses 3D printing to achieve the look of her pieces. Tom Ford also took the challenge of using a different medium and molded metal to create a breastplate for one of his pieces. I feel that I have a good deal of knowledge about spotting a designer’s signature design aspect. I think it is very interesting to watch things like award shows and be able to pick out what fashion house designed what pieces. For example Comme des Garçons is easy to spot because of their obtuse designs for silhouettes and fabric combinations. I also like to see how that signature will slightly change with creative directors. Moschino before creative director Jeremy Scott had loud patterns and a focus on texture. After Jeremy Scott, there is more labeling and the brand has now become primarily camp instead of day to day wear. Another part of fashion that interests me is the push to make the industry more sustainable. Prioritizing the environment is very important to me as well as the humanitarian crisis the fashion industry causes. Hemp is one example of a sustainable fabric and it is personally one of my favorites. I love the texture of the fabric and how it will hold shape but it would not be a great option for every piece. Being knowledgeable about how these fabrics flow and hold shape is very important to me when talking about sustainability because the old fabrics need to be replaced by something. 

I was actually not aware of how controversial using hemp fabric is. Hemp fabric is such a superior option when compared to cotton that it’s almost difficult to think why there would be problems using it. Hemp fabric is lightweight, three times stronger than cotton, and has the texture of linen but less expensive. Hemp fabric’s downfall and source of controversy is the fact that it is made of fiber that comes from cannabis plants. Because of the fabric’s association with cannabis causes many consumers to assume that it has psychoactive properties not realizing that the fabric does not work like that. Aside from consumers being ill informed, it is hard to grow these hemp fibers in the U.S. because cannabis laws are not the same in every state and because of how legally grown cannabis plants are regulated. Before this I had never known how difficult it is to create hemp fabric in the states. I think legalization in all 50 states would help this problem, but educating consumers after years and years of misinformation about cannabis in general might be even more difficult than that. My ending question has to be, how do we reverse these thoughts towards hemp fabric and towards sustainable fabric in general to save our environment?