From the loom to wear: shapeable tubular textiles for seamless fashion

Abstract

There are various approaches and challenges in textile research that focus on how textile and fashion design processes could improve sustainability. For example, zero-waste pattern cutting and whole garment knitting technology have been suggested as solutions that would reduce fabric wastage. Currently, fashion, in its fleeting nature, fuels an endless race for change, newness and variety (Chapman, 2014). Fast fashion industries are compelled to use cheap materials and labour to enable rapid changing trend of collections in between seasons. New trends of clothing are coming out every week through fast fashion industries. Such low- priced, short-term life cycle products are more likely to result in high levels of textile waste both during production and when products are withdrawn from sale (Joung, 2014).

This paper focuses on how woven textiles can reduce fabric wastage and enhance sustainability in garment making by integrating environmentally friendly materials while improving product lifespan. The paper will explore how 2D woven fabrics from the loom could be transformed into 3D fashion, in particular by using a shapeable tubular weaving technique. The paper also demonstrates how garments produced using this technique can be made to fit the body without the use of seams, as well as how they can be worn in multiple ways.

Traditionally, the most common way of making garments with woven fabrics is the ‘cut and sew’ method. In contrast, a practice-led approach in this paper will introduce how shapeable tubular weaving could create garments that can be worn as fashion items straight from the loom, without the intervening steps of cutting and sewing. Such a hand woven technique of garment making would not only minimise waste and reduce costs of garment construction, but would also enable fabrics to be worn in many different ways. The examples presented in this paper will explore how the relationships between woven structures and materials affect the surface of fabrics as well as the shape of seamless garments when worn on the body. Several prototypes will be presented in order to explore how contemporary 2D woven textile designs can be transformed into 3D fashion products.