(Her) Bespoke Crop Top | Laser, Cotton, 2016
Background
The (Her) Bespoke Crop Top is my rendition of ready-to-wear clothing made from sustainable material. I drew my idea from Fashion Revolution Week in 2015 and wanted to raise awareness on the lifecycle of garments.
To “fabricate” means to "make by art or skill and labor; to construct". I used Martijn van Strien, a believer in “sustainable and affordable clothing”, who believes “clothing is designed on the principles of open-source, and is made using 21st century technology”, as my reference. Pictured below is a screenshot of his open source crop top design.
Process
My digitally handmade piece was created in Adobe Illustrator and cut on a laser cutter at the Keeland Design Lab at The University of Houston. It was 2016, this was my final project for my Adobe Creative Suite course and I was going for a Kanye West inspired look. The color I had in mind would be a color that reflected this too.
The fabric is duck cloth fabric, also known as canvas. This is 100% cotton and similar to denim but it is woven tighter for longer wear. Its uses are usually for winter jackets and industrial-worker wear, which goes with the long lasting style that I wanted. This garment took me a few lectures to ideate, one lab day to prototype it in the Keeland Center and just one laser cutting session to physically fabricate.
