Flora 2 is a clothing label run by Carla Fernandez, a Mexican fashion designer who travels around the many indigenous communities in Mexico and works in collaboration with these groups to produce simple, modern clothes based on their traditional techniques.
Fernandez's interest in the traditional techniques of Mexican dress came about while working in an indigenous clothing museum in Mexico while on holidays from her fashion design course. She began studying the patterns and constructions of these traditional garments and realised they were all made using simple rectangles and squares. This went against everything she was being taught at fashion school, as modern pattern cutting techniques are based on the idea that there are no straight lines on the human body.
These construction techniques evolved because the cloth being used was shaped by the back-strap looms which have been used by indigenous Mexican communities for generations, and which only produces rectangular and square shaped cloth. Fernandez calls their techniques a type of 'cloth origami' and she was also struck by how efficiently they used every piece of cloth, which being hand woven was highly valued.
The efficient use of fabric in garment construction is also being explored in industrial clothing production due to the fact that apparently 15% of fabric is wasted in the process of pattern cutting.'No Waste' pattern cutting is being explored by some innovative designers including Mark Liu and Timo Rissanen
who are using new technologies such as laser cutting to make more efficient use of fabric, and along the way they are creating a new 'aesthetic'.
Whether using the latest technology or the traditional techniques of an indigenous community, it's great to see designers questioning and re-inventing current techniques and ways of doing things. Flora 2 has just won a big award from the British Fashion Council so expect to see more of her in the near future.
