slow design

There is a Slow Down London festival on at the moment encouraging Londoners to slow down their pace of living and appreciate the simple things in life more. There are talks, feasts and 'slow' walks around London.

Our urban interest for all things 'slow' also extends to design. Slow design and what this could mean for designers is being explored by several organisations and thinkers. Slowlab, who seem to be like a 'testing laboratory' for the ideas of slow design, have developed six principles. These include ideas such as reflection ("slowly-designed artefacts which induce contemplation and reflective consumption")and participation ("designs which embrace ideas of conviviality and exchange").

As I mentioned in my last post, there are many products and initiatives which are encouraging consumers or users to participate in the design process, whether its learning how to alter or adapt your existing garments or being able to choose which design you would like printed on a tshirt you are buying.

As part of the Slow Down London Festival, wallpaper designer/maker Linda Florence ran a workshop on 'Slow Printing', demonstrating her print techniques and allowing people to get involved in the screen -printing process.

I was also impressed by an exhibition at last year's London Design Festival, by furniture designer Tom Dixon. He exhibited a collection of chairs he had designed in collaboration with upholsterers George Smith. The exhibit showed the chairs at the many stages of construction, with several upholsterers working on-site. The beauty and craftmanship of the chairs was revelaed in a simple, effective way.

All of these events and initiatives reveal the hunger and inquisitiveness that we have for learning how a product is made or how a craft skill is demonstrated.

Image: www.tomdixon.net

Reap what you sew

Swapping the clothes we own, and learning to alter them, is a great way to reduce how much we buy and to appreciate new ideas of ownership and care. It is also makes you feel that you are participating in something rather than just passively buying whatever is in the shops.  

This idea of participation and activism is on the increase in all parts of society, thanks to the internet and a renewed interest and engagement from consumers. Within the fashion industry, as the monolithic brands continue to try and convince us of the latest 'must-have' trends, there are a few designers and artists who are offering a more participatory model of how to be a fashion consumer, or what's called 'fashion activism'. 

Matrushka Clothing are a clothing label who also run T construction in Los Angeles, an ongoing performance-based event of onsite sewing. The idea is that participants design their own tshirt and then watch it being made up by a team of skilled seamstresses. 

Due to the loss of individual sewing skills and the globalisation of the garment industry, there is a gap in our understanding of how clothes are made. By watching the process of construction maybe we will learn to appreciate the work and skill that goes into clothes making and this may affect how we buy and care for our clothes. 

Otto van Busch is another designer who creates participatory events and workshops around what he calls 'fashion hacking' - a collective sharing of how to "reverse engineer fashion". Participants learn how to deconstruct, customise and re-adapt garments to their own designs.

Although these are underground events with a small audience, there have been recent glimmers of hope even in the mainstream. Blood, Sweat & Tshirts, aired recently on the BBC, followed a group of young fashion addicts from the UK who were sent to work in garment factories in India to discover how tough the working conditions are. Two of the girls involved have since become passionate advocates for promoting ethical practices within the fashion industry and have called themselves 'ethical pests'. 

   

Image: www.shrwr.org, www.selfpassage.org