DSO102 Design Studio 1 Storytelling through material (Part B)

DSO102 Design Studio 1 Storytelling through material (Part B).

Introduction. Sustainable clothing by the most powerful element on Earth - Fire.

—Someone Famous. “ Sometimes what’s dead must be burned away to make room for new life. Sometimes you just have to step back and let the brittle bits ignite - but once those flames begin to dance their caustic dance, don’t you dare look the other way. Don’t close your eyes. Watch closely and let that image seer itself forever on your mind. Remember what it looked like in the midst of the soot, the smoke, and the haze. Remember, so you don’t repeat the same conditions that required such a blaze. .”.

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Refined Moodboard. Fairy Nanoan.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES. Earth is a giant factory of self sustaining sphere, which manufactures unique collection of ginormous trees weighing in tonnes to micro organisms with almost zero bio load. Quite interestingly each has its own role to play. Fire is one of the unique ways nature uses to weed out the unnecessary and create an ecosystem for a new generation of sustainable flora. While fire is usually, and quite often correct related to destruction, it has another side to its story. The lesser known story is, there are some plants and trees like the Bishop pine and Sargent Cypress that require fire to reproduce and propagate. These trees have cones which need a particular temperature to open up and spread the seeds. These seeds are protected from fire by the resin that is covering them. There are some other species which primarily grow only in the areas that fire has destroyed. The purifying nature and the role fire plays in creating new flora inspired me to create a plant based clothing..

THE PROCESS - SELECTION CRITERIA. 02.. The sturdiness of the leaves.

THE PROCESS - MATERIALS USED. Devil’s Ivy. Epipremnum aureum or devils ivy is commonly known as money plant in Indian subcontinent..

Show Case. Palm tree grows up to 20 to 30 meters and it represents the titan like living beings that live amongst us in the Earth. Palm trees can endure harsh climatic conditions yet the blossoms are a sight to behold - another way of nature explaining patiently that even in the harshest conditions beauty prevails. On the other hand the rose is a shrub which grows merely up to a meter represents the midgets and the tiniest living things on Earth. Considered widely as the queen amongst flowers this shrub has a habit of producing equally painful thorns. Hence combining these two contrasting flora, I used both the blossoms to decorate the dress made out of the devil's ivy..

REFLECTION. Creating a clothing purely out of sustainable plants is quite tricky. Creating a dress solely based out of aesthetic value and the availability of the materials did not appeal much to me at the start. But I wanted to create a dress that embodied the different polarities of Earth and the one which showcases the very nature of fire - which creates new things. At the same time, availability of materials in the regional area and preserving them also played a key role. The dress created is also a reminder that which not preserved in the right way, the sustainable sphere we are living in, will wither one day. (The fire that can create can destroy just as easily.) Once the destructive fire starts and the leaves wither, do not look away, it is a lesson that this planet needs to be saved before it is too late..