My Philosophy...

"After acquiring all knowledge, being able to think for yourself, aloud, is to be a great designer. It is speaking your own language, visual or verbal, couched in a language that is already understood. To create something fabulous, feminine, delicious, moral without walls and rich with past. I design dreams."

"I design for those who feel they are wearing their best friend: comfortable, past memories, love, honest and rich in culture."

I have really enjoyed this collaboration with Heidi. Through looking at her aesthetic I was finally able to realize what my aesthetic is as a designer. I still find it hard to put into words but I am getting there.

Working this project with sustainability in mind has been interesting. I have certainly learnt a lot in that designing is not creating an idea and producing it. You have to look at every process that that design will have to go through in order to be produced. As designers and artists we need to be aware of the environmental impact of a textile from fiber growth, manufacturing, transportation right through to the end product. Being naive to environmental impacts made by our decisions is not acceptable anymore. It should never have been.

I will try to get there. But it will take time to change my whole process of thinking in that I won't have such beautiful fabrics to work with, but is child labor and green house gas emissions worth it? No, no at any cost. It is going to be a slow process but its time to head in that direction. Zero waste is definitely something i can start incorporating today.

Climate change and textiles...(6)

Climate change or global warming certainly started to catch my attention about four years ago. When Al Gore's documentary: " The Inconvenient Truth" came out I was terrified. I started to turn all appliances off, I didn't use aerosols anymore, I kept my plastic bags... still I was naive to what is really going on.

Climate change, or global warming is the rise in the planet's overall temperature resulting in anthropogenic, or human-related, increase of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere. After researching into different aspects of the textile industry's affect on the environment I think it is good to take a step back at look at the big picture of its affects.

What a surprise when you you read that the textile industry is one of the biggest GHG emitters on earth, due to its huge size and scope. As a designer, it really makes you ponder if what we do is at all sustainable in itself. I must be honest in saying that I haven't enjoyed this pondering very much. It's hard to look at all the facts presented to us on paper and through the changes in the environment about just how badly textiles negatively affect the world we live in. But people have to be clothed, and if we are the ones who must dress them we better do it and start doing it sustainably. Being naive about the effect of textiles does not help pave the way to an eco-friendly industry or world.

As I have discussed in previous blogs, many processes and products go into the making of fibers, textiles and apparel products that consume copious amounts of fossil fuels. Apparel and textiles account for approximately 10% of the total carbon impact. I didn't fully understand what a carbon footprint was: the total amount of CO2 and other GHGs emitted over the full life cycle of a process or product. For an annual global production of 60 billion kgs of fabrics -- 1 trillion kilowatt hours of electricity and up to 9 trillion liters of water are used. I can't even comprehend those numbers.

Companies such as Marks&Spencers, U.K. and Walmart are two companies that are moving in the right direction. They are starting to take the necessary steps to push suppliers to improve sustainability and offering environmentally responsible products with decreased carbon footprint along with investments into corporate social responsibility and projects to improve the working& living conditions of workers.

This only furthermore expresses the urgency and seriousness of the situation that is at hand. That as designers we are responsible for creating an environment and process of producing apparel in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way in every way possible. If it is not going to start on the other end of the textile industry, it must start with us.

Making the final product...

1. I started off by using the stretch striped shirt to practice creating the front of the turban:
2. I was undecided about how to create the back of my turban. I stitched different sleeves together and pleated them to create an interesting look:

3. I practiced pinning the sleeves in place to see how they would fit. I placed each pair above each other so I could tie the rest of the sleeves around the crown of the head. I practised twisting and knotting them to create the flower and stem technique I liked from my previous experiments:

4. I then went ahead to cut the main bodies of each shirt into 1/2s and 1/3rds as illustrated.

5. After cutting the shirts bodies into pretty even strips I calculated how may I would need to create the body of the turban. I used the remaining strips to create volume between the foam and on the crown of the head to create more volume. I decided to use the stretch striped fabric for the front of the turban. I used the hem from the bottom of this shirt as the hem that frames the face to give it a neat edge.I stretched it out a bit to keep it tort. I folded and pleated it into 4 folds which I hand-stitched in place. I repeated this process with the rest of the strips to create the body of the turban as illustrated below.

6. Below you can see the back of the turban where you can see that i have used the remaining strips as stuffing material to give the turban volume. I then started to hand-stitch the sleeves into place:

7. I then started to twist and fold alternative sleeves, tying and twisting them together to create the 'flower' and 'stem' look that I have experimented with.

The final product:

Transporting to anti-eco....(5)

Before I read Transport Troubles, I had not heard so many cold hard facts about the effect of transport on the environment and climate change. Wiederkehr & Caid certainly made it clear to me that something seriously needs to be done about our relaxed attitudes into going 'green'. Since transports emergence about a century ago, it has taken a brutal toll on the Earth's environment, a toll much heavier than I thought.

I came across the term 'decoupling' often after reading up on sustainability which essentially means slowing, if not reversing, the growth in environmentally damaging activities in relation to economic expansion. The world in so many areas is moving towards 'decoupling' except apparently for transport. Yes, technologies have gotten cleaner, but that is cancelled out by the huge increasing stock of vehicles. The fleet of road vehicles across the world currently grows at about twice the rate of the population. How is that even possible?

Air pollution, land-take, road and air fatalities: we have all become used to all of this or even see it as a sign of progress. That really is the problem, we have all become so comfortable with way technology has emerged we haven't taken enough time at all to see it's effects. Take traveling for example. Traveling is something I just love. I have traveled a lot since I was young and I hope to have a job in fashion one day that involves a lot of travel. Air travel is my favourite. Air transport creates a potent greenhouse gas while it is up in the air. Aviation is quickly becoming the fastest mode for movement of both freight and people, so its global warming effect may exceed that of trucks or cars by 2030. But a business-as-usual attitude to transport is not on. There needs to be a clear division between travel, mobility and communications from travel itself. Over the last century the motorized movement of people and goods increased more than one hundredfold, while the total human population increased fourfold.

Keeping in mind just how many vehicles there are in the world and times it by the atmospheric emissions that are released and the resources used, its an unthinkable amount! Fuel type is important. Diesel is consumed at a higher rate than petrol these days due to freight traffic. Although diesel engines are more fuel-efficient than petrol engines, and with lower COZ emissions per km, they produce more particulates and chemicals.

I always comment at the fumes that choke out of my dad's Toyota Land Cruiser which ends up in long discussions about pollution with an end all result of...pfft on both our sides. But its an obvious concern, the emission of greenhouse gases and air pollutants that damage health and the environment. Transport contributes to 20% of CO^sub2^ form burning of fossil fuels worldwide. That rate doesn't even include vehicle manufacture, road construction and disposal. Certain smog is created too which harms almost all biological tissue, damaging plants and penetrating deep into the respiratory tracts of animals. They also deeply affects us and our health. Apparently the pollution levels are much higher inside a car than outside? If that doesn't disturb me then i don't know what would?

What about roads? Roads affect ecosystems, interfere with natural drainage and block species migration. 93% of the total area of land in the UK is taken up by road networks. What about energy use? 20% of energy use is for transport. Transport is the main use of oil, accounting for some 60% of the amount extracted used as fuel, in production, maintenance and disposal of vehicles and infrastructure.

Where does this fit in with my processes as a designer? I guess I have to really think about how much traveling my textiles and garments have to do to get from A to B. Locally would be better than international, distance, routes, destinations: they all would have to be thought of in much more depth than i first would have out the effort in to. Transport is inevitable but how are we going to start minimising its affects to the earth drastically?

(Resources: Wiederkehr, P., & Caid. N. (2002). Transport troubles. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.The OECD Observer,(233), 43-46. Retrieved August 18, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 199554461).

Child labor (4)

One thing that has always really upsets me when it comes to producing garments, well actually producing any product, is child labor. The problem of child labor exists throughout the world. According to 2002 estimates from the International Labour

Organization (ILO), about 246 million children aged 5-17 years are working worldwide. 50% of these children can be found in Asia, however, the largest percentage of working children are in Africa (around 1 in 3) while 14-20% of the children work in Latin America. It makes me think, when I look at a label and see that its made in China, India or somewhere in Africa it is more than likely that children have made it. The textile and garment industry is one of the major contributors guilty of such an issue. Only 5 % of the child labor goes toward export oriented industries such as manufacturing and mining. They say that because of natural disasters,poverty, economic crisis, and HIV/AIDS there has been decreasing opportunities or access to alternative work other than child labor. Which really is an horrendous thought. To think of all these little kids slaving away to create a jumper or shirt that I throw on and wear happily around each day makes me feel sick.

Right now in some dingy, cold, unhygienic working environments that these kids are made to work in they are being caused danger to their health and safety. Most of these children are taken from their families and forced to work hundreds of miles from home where there is no regulation of their working conditions. These work places are often lacking even basic hygiene, their breaks are few and far in between, there is hardly any access to nearly enough food or even water, and som

etimes they are even beaten. Some of the machinery that these kids have to run are big and dangerous and hazardous to their safety. They work long, monotonous hours too and with meagre pay. All of this must have such a tremendous effect on

these children's growth and development, and they are open to disease and injury. There have been copious reports describing poisoning, infections, chronic lung disease, burns, amputations, skeletal deformities, and impairments to hearing, vision, and immune function. It all makes me think of myself as a kid and the circumstances I was brought up in. How is it that today in a world of such rich resources, wealth, knowledge, technology and innovative ways to go about any problem we wish, child labor, one of the most age-old obviously immoral, wrong and upsetting issues can't be eliminated? Does it always come down to the $? It seems it does, even at the cost of working little kids in to the ground.

The owner of a textile factory beating a child laborer. The boy works for ten hours a day and earns about 1 USD.

A child works in a textile factory in Dhaka. It is common in Bangladesh for children of poor parents to work in various hazardous and labor-intensive workplaces to support their families. The average child laborer earns between 400 to 700 taka per month, while an adult worker can earn up to 5,000 taka per month.

I found a newspaper article that pinpointed this issue of child labor in India and how it really does come down to money: In a survey of the textile markets in Rajasthan, there are hundreds of children deprived of education and other basic human rights. They are forced to do tedious jobs in more than 50, 000 shops of 140 textile markets in the city. They get minimal daily wages of Rs20 to Rs50 for a 10-14 hour day. Healthier children are chosen to carry weights up to 100kg on their backs developing hunches by the time they are 25. Others worked 10 hours in the dark for Rs50. Most of them were scared to talk to the reporters because they were scared of severe reprisal from their employers. The worst part is they don't seem to understand what's wrong with the work they have to do at such a young age. One questioned "My parents sent me from Rajasthan to earn for the family. What is wrong in it?". And here is what disgusted me the most... A contractor for transporting goods to the textile market said, " For an adult, we have to pay Rs125 to Rs150 per day, but for children just Rs50 to Rs75 per day is enough. So, we employ them." Is it really all about cosy-cutting? What is more cost-productive? What churns more money? Shunting aside social responsibility, human rights and worse morality?

It's funny, when you're practicing to become a designer all I've been focused on is the design and using these fabulous fabrics to create some piece of art, something fabulous for people to have in their wardrobe. I haven't previously, up until having to research this all, even considered while picking out my fabrics and through my design process that some of the fabrics I may want to make up my design or collection have been made by children from the age of five in awful working conditions half way across the world.

That half way across the world that I am talking about is actually home for me. Africa, where this has been happening under my nose for years, and yes of course I've known about it but do I like to stay naive to how a garment or textile is really produced? Yes, I think we all do in some way? But that is just inexcusable now. This is an issue we just cannot ignore anymore. On all fronts, this issue of child labor needs to be addressed. Employers of child labor must be tackled, and employment sectors at risk should sign up to codes of conduct that are monitored and enforced.

Resources: (Venkateswarlu, D., Kasper, J., Mathews, R., Reis, C. & et al. (2003). Child labour in India: a health and human rights perspective. T he Lancet: Extreme Medicine, 362, s32-3. Retrieved August 17, 2010, from Academic Research Library. Document ID: 521938241 Thomas Scanlon. (2002). Child labour. Student BMJ, 10, 354. Retrieved August 17, 2010, from Academic Research Library. (Document ID: 210404591; Green, B. (2008). Organizing for Defeat: The Relevance and Utility of the Trade Union as a Legitimate Question. http://sf5mc5tj5v.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2 Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft .genre=article&rft.atitle=Organizing+for+Defeat%3A+The+Relevance+and+Utility+of+the+Trade+Union+ as+a+Legitimate+Question&rft.jtitle=Labour&rft.au=Brian+Green&rft.date=2008-10 01&rft.issn=0703862&rft.issue=62&rft.spage=153&rft.externalDBID=LBLT&rft.externalDocID=1618868181; Case Study: " Is Child Labor Really Necessary in India's Carpet Industry? ww.american.edu/TED/rugmark.htm; Bhatt, H. (2010). Child Labor a prevalent menace in textile menace. Times of India.)

ExpeRimenting...

It has definitely been difficult deciding how to put three whole shirts into one whole turban. I have decided that is essential to use the elements of the shirts to create an interesting turban. Here are a few of my sketches:

Using the shirts still in one piece I started to experiment how to place them in position to create my turban. I like the idea of using the sleeves & cuffs as twisting 'stems' and 'flowers' placed towards the back and crown of the head as illustrated below:

I then started to create the rest of the turban by using the front & backs of the shirts by folding and pleating them to create a neat effective look. I think I will use the stretch striped shirt as the front material that surrounds the head to make it easier to get on:

I also tried here the same twisting and 'flower' technique as used above but moved it to the front of the head instead of the back.

After experimenting and fiddling around with the shirts it was time to cut. It is really daunting just going ahead without knowing exactly how the end result is going to turn out. So i cut each shirt into collars, sleeves and main bodies: