Rethinking Textile Fashion:: New Materiality, Smart Products, and Upcycling
Rethinking Textile Fashion:: New Materiality, Smart Products, and Upcycling
Rethinking Textile Fashion:: New Materiality, Smart Products, and Upcycling
ANTTI AINAMO
Guest Professor, University of Borås Swedish School of
Textiles; Professor, St. Petersburg Polytechnic Univ. Dept. of
Engineering Graphics and Design;
Adjunct Professor, Aalto University. School of ARTS and and
School of Business, Helsinki, Finland
RETHINKING
TEXTILE FASHION:
New Materiality,
Smart Products, and
Upcycling BY ANTTI AINAMO
KEYWORDS:
Upcycling, Smart textile, Smart fashion,
Sustainability, New materialisms
Deconstruction No deconstruction
There are at least two mutually complementary sub- “whether as images in the mind or as objects in the
approaches to how positivity is the road to healthy natural world… [a textile] seeks to join with those very forces
environment. These are “deconstruction” and “temporary that bring form into being. Thus the [fashion] line grows
products”. from a point that has been set in motion, as the plant
grows from its seed.”
The essential relation in a world of life is thus not SMART TEXTILE FASHION AND UPCYCLING
between materials and form. Rather, the essential relation In sum, in the above deconstructionist and temporary ways,
is between material elements and forces of life (Deleuze new materialism is a framework to nurture ideas on how
and Guattari, 2004, p. 377). These forces exceed the life and to deconstruct and represent on an on-going basis what is
death of any individual material form (Cheah 2008, p. 155). textile fashion, and what ought it to be. At its core, in the
Seen from these kinds of angles, despite being such framework of this paper, “pure” new-materialist textile
an extreme version of new materialisms, deconstruction fashion does not exist in material form but as a series
provides us elements with which to improve upon the health of in-between relations or spaces, which every reader or
of the natural environment in concrete ways, to make participant in a role such as that of a designer, manufacturer,
our textile fashion more sustainable. Other ways to work marketer or consumer will understand differently. At the
towards freeing the natural environment from the current intersection of the relations or spaces, each temporary
states of pollution textile fashion include to manufacture and material product may appear meaningful for participants in
to distribute increasingly temporary forms of product. a way that is worth preserving in a second life of the textile,
woven, or fiber.
Temporary products Even now, at a time when there ought to no longer to
Temporary products offer a different kind of a starting point be pollution, and textile fashion orient toward radical and
of analysis for rethinking than deconstruction. In viewing system-level change for a healthy natural environment, this
textile fashion as a series of temporary products, this sub- kind traditional materialism in textile fashion remains like
approach takes an equally radical and system-wide view a living fossil. Rather than be activists to transform the
of manufactured products that are traditionally considered system in radical and system-wide ways, many traditiona-
stabilized and material as does deconstruction. In temporary materialists are all too satisfied in calling for “negation” and
products, the emphasis in textile fashion is on the relations protest (Marcuse 1991, p. 63) whereby textile fashion:
and spaces in-between material textiles, wovens, and fibers,
rather than on their material form and content. Within this “contains the ‘rationality of negation. In its advanced
context, the ‘relations and spaces’ refers not only what is positions, it is the Great Refusal – the protest against that
in-between one textile, woven or fiber and another, but also which is.”
those in-between one assembly of textile, wowen and fiber
and another across time. Consider, for example, how the The treatment of cotton textile has included using
market for cellular telephony has been reframed as a fashion chemicals to treat the emerging cotton textile material. Just
market by a fashion consultant (Djelic & Ainamo 2005, p. as meanings and structures of words and sentences and other
61): expressions can be tweaked as to what it is that we mean by
what is object and what is outside, what is fixed entity and
“‘in the fashion industry, brands are not imposed on what is forever dynamic, so can one tweak what remains
the consumer; they are found’. This fashion consultant physical material in whole in part, of one kind of material
went on, suggesting that ‘’if you want to build a brand or that of another. Within this context, in the case of a
that stands on solid ground, you will need to use a case approaching the borderline between new materialism
more grassroots type of approach. You need people and traditional materialist thinking, consider the following
with influence in the fashion industry to believe in your example (Kotler 2000, p. 223):
brand and to spread your name by word of mouth. Their
lifestyle will then be copied by other people’ (Kaufmann, “when DuPont developed a new synthetic fiber for
2003).” carpets, it demonstrated to carpet manufacturers that
they could afford to pay DuPont as much as $1.40 per
Within the above kind of deconstruction and rethinking pound for the new fiber and still make their target profit.
of temporary form as a viral process of social diffusion, no DuPont calls the $1.40 the value-in-use price. But pricing
particular textile, item of fashion, just like no organism or the new material at $1.40 per pound would leave the
organization, genuinely ever embodies life. Any of these will carpet manufacturers indifferent. So DuPont set the
be the shell that merely traps and imprisons life, for a while, price lower than $1.40 to induce carpet manufacturers
within a temporary organized form. to adopt the new fiber. In this situation, DuPont used
its manufacturing cost only to judge whether there was state whereby each part-member would have a deterministic
enough profit to go ahead with the new product.” designated function with little vision of an integrated
or systemic totality (Cheah 2010, p. 87). Practico-inert
In other words, the challenge has been that even reification and materialization of artefacts would drive
participants who are ecologically aware, still cannot liberate each other in a shifting chase, holding as its “two key
themselves from thinking in traditional materialist ways. features… first, the understanding of nature and history as
Emerging trends in research and practice in new materialisms law-governed processes that can be rationally understood
and in challenging traditional materialism include the instead of immutable metaphysical substances, and, second,
foregoing smart textile fashion and up-cycling, terms already the determination of these processes as processes with
mentioned in conjunction with Table 1. material existence that can be explained through empirical
science” (Cheah 2008, p. 143). Organic, social and existential
Smart textile fashion elements would merge and reinforce each other (Beauvoir
A material or product is considered “smart” when (Porter & 2012, p. 9) so that:
Heppelmann 2014, p. 5):
“… each reacts upon the others and is at the same time
“software replaces some hardware components”, or affected by them”.
countries). The market for re-wearing and recycling second- PROPOSITIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH,
hand clothes in affluent developed countries is limited, GUIDELINES FOR PRACTICE
especially in comparison with the near endless growth of This paper has inquired into sustainability issues in the
new-clothing consumption (Ericsson & Brooks 2014, p. 92): global textile fashion industry. Resources, skills or wills
for environmental protection have not always readily been
“The vast majority of donated clothing is exported found in this industry. In response to calls for radical system-
clothing is exported overseas and retailed in the wide change in how textile and fashion manufacturing and
developing world, via a trade pattern that is largely distribution are organized internationally, this paper has
unknown among the general public. Across the globe, asked: What alternative approaches exist for bringing about
rich and poor people are intimately linked, as used the radical and system-wide change in textile and fashion?
clothes pass through networks of charitable and How to know which of such approaches is best?
commercial exchange that trade second-hand clothes Across research and practice, over time, we ought to
between continents (Rivoli 2012).” develop techniques to treat natural and artificial fibers in
second-hand clothes so that they will represent material
“Second hand clothing is massively important in sub- equal to new material, at par with de novo natural and
Saharan Africa and difficult to appreciate for readers artificial fibers, or at least nearly so. We perhaps cannot yet
unfamiliar with the context. Countries such as Kenya, even imagine how to do that, but a vision that such is our
Mozambique, Uganda, Senegal and Zambia have major intent matters. When we will be able to repair second-hand
second-hand clothing markets”. fibers or regenerate totally new ones, this is when we will
be able to smoothly migrate or move fibers from second-
Given that natural fiber is both sourced and distributed hand clothes into new textile fashion in the vision of new
at the end of its life cycle in developing countries, it is good materialisms. We will have in place relations and spaces for
design to close to loop. Indeed, there are instances of this a truly sustainable complex of textile fashion and natural
already happening. For example (Ericsson and Brooks 2014, environment.
p. 94):
Now, with the intention to be a thought piece on how
“In the Mozambiquen markets, some tailors do use to make textile fashion a more sustainable human pursuit
a mixture of second-hand clothing together with the than it is now, this paper is ready to extend propositions for
traditional capulanas (printed sarang) to add value and further research and their corollaries for transfer into textile
to produce something different for local consumers. fashion practice:
[As a prime example of this still but new and emerging
is to] use second-hand clothing imports as the basis to Proposition 1. Textile fashion grows from what is already
make desirable new commodities, taking old textiles and in motion, like a plant grows from its seed, but the seed
creating high-value, up-cycled, second-hand dresses… need not be a material one.
both questioning to the way fashion is made on a global
scale, as well as contributing to the local design scene.” Proposition 2. A temporary product may be just as
meaningful and of worth for participants as fiber sourced
In up-cycling, old clothes are used up toward the end from the natural environment.
of their life cycle in the very same countries from where
especially natural fiber for textile fashion is originally Proposition 3. Smart textile fashion can negate textile
sourced (Boscia 2014): fashion’s negative impact on the health of the natural
environment, so that the outcome is positive.
“Upcycling allows these old clothes to have a second
life, rather than amassing in secondhand markets in Proposition 4. Natural and artificial fibers sourced from
developing countries or going into landfills.” second-hand clothes can be treated into a source of fiber
materially at par with de novo natural and artificial
fibers.
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