Sustainability and the Seventies

Abigale
May 8, 2020
3 min read

Hi Everyone! Welcome back to my sustainability series! After learning so much about sustainability and researching it, Carlie and I decided to collaborate on a sustainable sportswear collection. Below we have shared our inspiration for the 70’s aesthetic that we chose as our theme for the collection! The featured designers are Stella McCartney and Tommy Hilfiger.

Mood Board

We chose Stella McCartney’s company as our inspiration. We liked how they used re-engineered cashmere, forest-friendly viscose, acetate, and modal, and their no use of leather or fur. The reason that the fabrics are sustainable is because the cashmere is reengineered to be safer for the environment, the forest-friendly fabrics are safer for environments and do not kill any forest environments, and as for the fur it is just inhuman to continuously kill animals when there are many other ways to modify those fabrics. They use brass chains instead of copper mining which copper doesn’t break down and its fumes are very harmful to humans. They use organic cotton which eliminates a lot of pesticides that are harmful for the soil. With our trends, we chose to reference Tommy Hilfiger’s Fall 2020 Ready to wear collection to base our trends off of. We loved how he made his designs have a 70’s vibe to it while still keeping it modern. We also wanted to clarify that we chose to reference him for his aesthetics, not his specific design practices! Below are some pictures and videos to reference!

Below you can find our sketches, flats, and swatches for our mini collection. We have chosen to use some sustainable fabrics that Stella McCartney uses in her company. Our designs are based off of the 70’s vibe but with sportswear design in mind.

The technique we chose to discuss was when laying out patterns to cut we wanted to be mindful of excess textile waste. That being said we chose to be mindful about pattern placement on the fabric. This is sustainable because it helps limit the amount of fabric wasted, and we know that our garment will produce waste even with our technique so we wanted to utilize those scraps in our accessories. In the videos you can see that they way the both people lay them out, they have no waste at all. With the pieces we have chosen to make we will have to tweak those techniques and there will be some left over fabric that of course will be seen in our accessories. Also, in the second video the use of a ruler is something that will help make sure we are utilizing the space on the fabric. We also included the image of the dress pattern because that is the exact technique we’re using but just shortening it. We also wanted to use recycled paper to make each pattern as another way to keep the whole process eco-friendly!

Here is some extra information on how the collection will be made and how we used the scraps to make some cute accessories!

List of materials for garments

Organic Cotton Denim
Fusible Interfacing
Brass buttons
9” Brass invisible zipper
Blue Thread

Accessories from textile waste

Headband made from denim waste
Hand-bag made from faux suede waste that came from the jacket on the other garment
Brass circle loop belt

Order of Operations for sewing the Jumpsuit

Get fabric on grain
Plan the layout of patterns while eliminating waste
Cut out the pattern pieces
Sew in the dart pieces on the bodice and pant pieces.
Iron on fusible interfacing
Front bodice piece and back bodice piece right sides together, sew side seam on the right. (Keep left open for zipper)
Sew straps together. Use a loop turner to turn the right side out.
Sew in neckline facing to attach straps
Flip the facing in and stitch in the ditch to secure it down
Sew the pant inseams right sides together
Sew the crotch seam from the back to the front waist, right sides together
Then sew the pant sides seam on the right, right sides together (leaving left open for zipper)
Then attach the bodice to the pants
Sew in invisible zipper on the left opening
Hem pants at 1 ¼
Hand sew the faux buttons on
Press neatly