Knit-a-morphosis

Knit-a-morphosis

Knit-a-morphosis

WHAT DID YOU CREATE?

"Knit-a-morphosis" is the latest chapter of a creative investigation whose aim is to use knit to achieve a new way of constructing and wearing garments, rebuilding what has often become a lost connection between clothes, the wearers, and their bodies. This research explores the possibility of subverting existing hierarchies, letting the wearer take a leading position in relation to the garment. So if usually clothes are the ones shaping, correcting, and modifying the body, what if it was vice versa? Can the wearer engage with the garment instead of passively adapt to it? Also, clothes often leave marks on the body: what if the body left a mark on clothes instead?

The resulting knitwear collection is composed of one-of-a-kind pieces that can be worn as they are but, through an interaction with the wearer, can also irreversibly change in colour, shape, and volume, becoming more complex and exciting to wear. This is possible thanks to an innovative combination of knitting structures that informs the construction and silhouette of the garments directly and fully on the knitting machine, without the need for any additional process, and makes the fabric interactive, transformable, and customisable.

Each garment is designed to incorporate this new structure in specific areas, marked by a removable draw-thread that is knitted in a contrasting colour and strategically positioned. At any point, the wearer is able to take out this thread pulling it from a trigger. This releases specific stitches, allowing the start of the transformation: now the fabric needs to be stretched in order to reveal the change. Users can obviously decide whether or not they want to remove the thread, in which areas they want to do it, and if they want to transform the fabric all the way or not. The final design is not the sole outcome, because this special feature does not only allow the garment to be transformed but also makes the user live an unrepeatable experience: the process of transformation itself.

WHY DID YOU MAKE IT?

The more I study how garments are conceived, the more I realise that they are often purposely built to shape the body, to hide its imperfections and to make it look symmetrical. They are created not for the wearers, but rather against them so that the “perfect silhouette” considered essential for true beauty and elegance can be achieved. These concepts are not modern nor positive, because they imply that the body is wrong as it is and that clothes need to correct it. Through a process of self-liberation of the wearer, these pieces develop taking up more space, in response to a body that asks for more awareness to the clothes it is put in relation with.

The fact that the fabric cannot go back to its initial state after the transformation, is not to be considered a disadvantage: on the contrary, the irreversibility of the transformation implicitly demands attention and awareness to the person performing it and creates a sense of tension, encouraging the users to take responsibility for their actions and embrace risk. This is how the fabric can become a metaphor for something bigger, alluding to conversations about society and the way we behave as humans.

The garments encourage deep dialogues between the designer/maker, the wearer and the fabric itself. These dialogues are not tied to space or time, because the design will be discovered by the user at his own pace and with his own rules. A direct dialogue between the designer and the wearer is not really possible, but an indirect one can occur through the garments, and specifically through the performative act that the user will experience thanks to the maker’s idea. This can have endless positive consequences, like causing users to feel more emotionally attached to the product, delaying its psychological obsolescence.

HOW DID YOU MAKE IT?

An innovative combination of knitting structure

Being a conceptual technical thinker, I tend to respond to my research questions directly on the knitting machine. I experimented with different techniques that could distort shape within the knitted fabric and I analyzed how these techniques behaved in relation to the body.

Eventually, I came across an interesting combination of existing knitting structures. I was instantly attracted to it because I noticed that when knitting with these techniques in a “traditional” way, the fabric that comes out of the machine needs to be manually pulled to make the stitches drop in the areas previously determined, obtaining a change in the fabric and creating interesting visual effects. This inspired me to think that I could take advantage of this manual interaction, which is usually carried out almost unconsciously during the production process, re-interpreting what is traditionally a decorative effect in a functional way. I realized that, if applied to garments, this structure could not only inform their construction and silhouette, but it could do so in an interactive way, becoming the tool I was looking for to recreate a connection between the garment and the body. And this is why I decided to let it become the centre of my design process.

I then worked on the combination of this structure with other knitting techniques, like plaiting or inlay, so that I could make the fabric change not only in density and volume but also in colour and texture. I struggled for months trying to find the correct yarn, structure, and tension combinations, but I finally found the winning recipes, achieving a functioning transformable structure with the most commonly used fibres.

The removable draw-thread

At this point, I had to find a way to “protect” the changing zones, so that it would have been possible to control the start of the transformation. Here’s how I came up with the idea of knitting a removable draw thread on the edge of the designated areas. This instantly felt like the best solution, because the structure could be realized fully on the knitting machine, without the need for any additional process from cast on to cast off. With the purpose of enhancing the presence of the draw thread on the fabric, and turning its presence into a unique design element, I decided to knit it using colours that were contrasting with the main fabric, as well as to add a small puller at one of the extremities. This puller is made using the excess yarn produced by the machine on the side of the knitted piece, and is created using a basic macrame technique. Without being too obvious, the puller also suggests the possibility for the thread to be removed from the garment.

From fabric to garment

Since I see myself as a designer and not purely as a researcher, after a while I decided to direct my material investigation, focusing on the creation of a collection of garments to test the possibilities of the technique I developed in a concrete application.

During my initial research, I studied how the technique I developed could simplify garments’ construction, becoming the tool to achieve curves and tridimensional shapes. This reduces the need for fully fashioning, making the production more sustainable and cost-effective. Consequently, inspired by the ideas of famous pattern-makers like Usha Doshi and Tomoko Nakamichi, I created garments patterns using basic shapes, such as rectangles or triangles, so that it would be only by taking advantage of both the properties of knit and specifically of this new technique that it will be possible to achieve more complex forms and volumes, making the change more dramatic. To test this idea, I worked on a series of small-scale knitted structures, and I assigned each one a name that evoked the kind of transformation that the fabric was going to achieve. The possibilities were many, but due to time limitations I explored the ones that seemed most promising, and these also ended up informing the design of the garments composing the final lineup. We have “Curve”, “Swell”, “Flare”, “Fan” and “Swing”.

Butterflies’ metamorphosis as colour inspiration

Finally, the colour palette is inspired by the concept of metamorphosis in nature, and specifically in butterflies. I saw so many similarities between the two evolutionary processes: the way the fabric becomes wider, longer, opens and spreads reminded me of the caterpillar, whose colour is often aimed at hiding in natural habitats, coming out of the chrysalis and becoming a colourful and majestic butterfly. In the same way, “Knit-a-morphosis” garments look simple and almost plain at the beginning, but after the transformation, they become more complex and exciting to wear.

The knitwear collection is composed of 5 human scale womenswear outfits for a total of 8 garments (3 tops, 2 dresses, 2 skirts and 1 pair of pants). Some of the products were realised with the help of a manual domestic knitting machine (Brother KM2000), while others were produced on digital knitting machines, both Stoll and Shima Seiki (sponsored). Since the technique is a combination of existing basic knitting structures and can be applied to any yarn mix and gauge, the production method is not relevant for its performance. However, of course, digital knitting allows the production to be faster and to achieve more complex patterns.

In the same way, the amazing quality of the yarns provided by the sponsors Loro Piana (cashmere and silk) and Copley Marshall (mercerised cotton) ensured a very high-quality result and a smooth knitting experience. Moreover, Loro Piana’s Stretchsilk, which is a silk yarn combined with metal fibre, was chosen because of its function to help the transformed structures keep their volume and texture. During the transformation, the surprise element from a visual and tactile point of view is provided by both the appearance of bright colours, as well as the emergence of unexpected fancy yarns, that create a strong texture contrast with the base. Finally, after various tests, the choice for the draw-thread fell on Serafil, a polyester continuous filament commonly used to sew shoes and fashion accessories. This yarn has the high breaking strength needed, is available in different colours and titles, and is easy to knit, high quality and long-lasting.

Garments specifications:

OUTFIT 1
SWELL Top: weight: 455g, production method: Shima Seiki digital knitting machine, yarns: Cashmere 2/27, Coarsehair 2/30 (Loro Piana), Cell 3D (Be.mi.va), Serafil 10 Tex
SWING Skirt: weight: 330g, production method Domestic Bother KM2000 manual knitting machine, yarns: Cashmere 2/27, Coarsehair 2/30 (Loro Piana), Serafil 10 Tex

OUTFIT 2
CURVE Top: weight: 935g, production method: Domestic Bother KM2000 manual knitting machine, yarns: Cashmere 2/27, Coarsehair 2/30 (Loro Piana), Serafil 20 Tex
RIPPLE Pants: weight: 665g, production method Shima Seiki digital knitting machine, yarns: Coarsehair 2/30 (Loro Piana), Serafil 20 Tex

OUTFIT 3
SPREAD Top: weight: 375g, production method: Stoll digital knitting machine, yarns: Mercerised Cotton (Copley Marshall), Serafil 10 Tex
FLARE Skirt: weight: 405g, production method: Stoll digital knitting machine, yarns: Mercerised Cotton (Copley Marshall), Cell 3D (Be.mi.va), Serafil 10 Tex

OUTFIT 4
FAN Dress: weight: 770g, production method: Shima Seiki digital knitting machine, yarns: Cashmere 2/27 (Loro Piana), Serafil 10 Tex

OUTFIT 5
BLOOM Dress: weight: 370g, production method: Stoll digital knitting machine, yarns: Stretchsilk (Loro Piana), Serafil 30 Tex

The end goal was to create a short film that was fundamental to communicate the performative conclusion of the project: the garments’ transformation. It was very important to do this right because there was only one chance to capture their irreversible modification. “Knit-a-morphosis” follows the transformation of the garments composing the collection. Their metamorphosis is compared to the one from caterpillar to butterfly: the alternation of frames between the two evolutionary processes highlights their similarities and is accompanied by the verses from Ovid's Metamorphoses Introduction.

https://www.rosalbafucci.com/knit-a-morphosis

https://vimeo.com/561843183

https://www.rosalbafucci.com/

The way in which “Knit-a-morphosis” aims at improving society and our lives is both conceptual as well as practical. It encourages a deeper connection between garments and the wearers by providing interactive pieces that are easy to produce and that don’t need any new or complicated technology to be achieved.

Generally speaking, digital knitting as a medium and production system is one of the most sustainable, being an additive process that minimises waste compared to traditional cut-and-sew methods. In particular, the innovative combination of knitting techniques developed for the project involves many advantages, that does not only make it smarter, but also easier, and therefore more democratic:

- First of all, the technique is realised fully on the knitting machine, without the need for any additional process from cast on to cast off.

- The technique can also be a tool to achieve curves and tridimensional shapes, making it possible to knit complex garments from very basic patterns, reducing the need for fully-fashioning and therefore simplifying and optimizing production.

- The alteration caused by the use of this new structure is not simply decorative, but can also be applied to the actual shape of the piece. This allows to have different potential outcomes from one knitted fabric.

- The removable draw-thread enhances the technique’s interactive, transformable, and customisable features: users can decide whether or not they want to remove it and start pulling the fabric, in which areas they want to do it, and if they want to go all the way or not. This may cause them to feel more emotionally attached to the product, delaying its psychological obsolescence.

By idealizing and energising this forgotten relationship, these garments recreate a connection with wearers, and as a consequence put people in a closer relationship with the fabric, the material, the manufacturing method, the designer… and so on.

At the same time, “Knit-a-morphosis” does not only encourage connections, but it also stimulates the user’s independence, while allowing him to actively engage with the garments and modify them, making him become the centre of this connection experience.