Upcycling Utopia

#fashion #design

In a both discursive and practical exploration, we aim to create a positive and engaged fashion utopia, using upcycling techniques to decouple the joys of engaging with fashion from the exploitation of material resources.

Fashion and dressing can be joyful and empowering but one look at media reports on Chile’s trash desert, the replacement of traditional dressmaking and craftsmanship with industrial production or the pressure to adhere to colonial beauty standards makes clear that the Western fashion system lacks a positive, constructive utopia. Conversations around sustainability and climate change are dominated by notions of scarcity and abstinence and often lack the joy and empowerment that we know fashion and dress practices are capable of.

In this summer course we aim to explore the potential of decoupling the joys of engaging with fashion from the exploitation of material resources.

While upcycling has been trending on tiktok in recent years, it is a century old cultural practice.
Throughout most of our history, fabrics and textiles were too precious and reusing them was not only a necessity but common sense. Using various research and design techniques we find inspiration in existing garments, discover their origins and inherent narratives. Which narratives and dogmas are implicitly carried in the clothes we wear? Which do we want to carry along into the future and which do we want to let go?

The course emphasizes both a discursive and practical exploration of how we can shape a positive and engaged fashion utopia. Participants will learn upcycling techniques empowering them to redesign clothes to make them relevant for their own or someone else‘s wardrobe.

This course is for anyone interested in making the most of what’s available to them – be it their own wardrobe or as designers working with existing materials. Basic sewing or pattern making skills are helpful for this course but not necessary.

We will work in the facilities of the fashion department of the University of the Arts Berlin. Participants are encouraged to bring unworn clothes from their own wardrobe. A small selection of discarded garments will be provided as well.

Schedule

Day 1 – Exploration / Deconstruction

Getting to know each other
Discovering stories and narratives inside garments through Konviviale Technik > exploring contemporary design techniques

Day 2 – Imagination and Redesign

Imagining the future life for your garments
How can we apply imaginations on practical work?
Selecting and applying appropriate upcycling techniques for your own work
Experimenting (draping, sketching, ideating), evaluating and choosing the final design

Day 3 – Practical Work

Implementing your design with the techniques of your choice: pattern making and sewing, hand printing, embroidery, etc.

Day 4 – Reflection

Finalising the design
Reflecting on each individual design process and finished object(s)

Knowledge requirements

Basic sewing skills or other fibre art skills are an advantage but not a requirement

Equipment requirements

If available bring some sewing equipment like (fabric) scissors, pins and needle, measuring tape.

Nina Birri

Nina is a Swiss fashion designer, living and working in Berlin. With her design studio Bitter she currently examines the notion of newness in times of material scarcity in the context of upcycling discarded materials. Sociological concepts on identity and gender equally influence her work as design methods and material studies. Her aim is to create wearable garments that challenge the status quo of how we design, produce and wear clothes in a quietly rebellious way.

Nina holds an MA in Design from Berlin University of the Arts. Apart from the her studio practice she regularly teaches at University of the Arts Berlin and works in various projects in the digital innovation space.

https://bitter.jetzt

 

 

Teresa Fagbohoun (*1986 in Mainz, Germany) works as a freelance fashion designer and lecturer at the Berlin University of the Arts. Since she graduated from UdK Berlin she has worked internationally in ready-to-wear and accessories and as a founder of her bag label Tabu. As part of her teaching practice she explores the intersection of fashion and power asymmetries and how design can contribute to social justice within a western fashion culture and industry. After living in São Paulo for many years, she now lives as a parent in Berlin.

https://design.udk-berlin.de/personen/teresa-fagbohoun