Word up

This year, Craft Victoria turns the big four-oh (as in 'oh yes!' rather than 'oh no...') and we've lined up a whole slew of special events and projects to celebrate this.

Anthea and client at the 2009 L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival

First up is a series of four essays commissioned as part of Craft Word, a collection of essays celebrating Craft Victoria. To get things started, fashion designer Anthea Van Kopplen (of the envelope project) has penned a most excellent article on the subject of excess in fashion.

Click here to have a read.

What a way to kick off the week!

South Kids X [envelope] Project

Not too long ago, cloth-clever artist Anthea Van Kopplen took her [envelope] Project to Coburg Primary School where dozens of kids participated in [toy envelope], an offshoot of the original project designed to promote sustainable living. The project was organised as part of A Month About Making, and for more pictures of the happy kiddies playing with their new threads, do visit our friends, The South Project.

Image courtesy of http://www.southkids.blogspot.com/

envelope workshop 2

"The workshop was great on Saturday. Rose, Alison, Helen, Kim and Elise found some lovely fabrics and cord. The only challenge for most was the fabric width, so if this is something others are struggling with as they down load the pattern, don't worry, if you are a little too narrow use eyelets and cord to fasten down the centre front. it'll be be perfect. that's the beauty of the piece. just change a fastening or a stitch and you have a whole new object to call your own.

I'm still hoping everyone puts a photo online. It would be so fresh, over the 2 years the How You Make It exhibition travels, to have a continuous catwalk over that time. It'll be a first for fashion - a two year long catwalk documentation - so come on everyone! have a go. It's so easy. We're dying to see what you make and what materials you think are fashionable."

"Stitch by stitch. it's just three folds, four pockets and a centre front fastening - 7 straight lines of stitching! then it's up to you how you fasten it. Oh, yes - the PDF is causing a couple of problems for some people. hint one: the armholes are 26cm long and begin just on the edge of the top pocket/hood, running straight down towards the waist, not towards the centre front. I hope this is clearer. go for it. "

Anthea van Kopplen
Designer, participating in How You Make It.

Don't forget you can download the pattern from the Craft Victoria site here and if you've made us an envelope piece, share it with us by uploading it to our flickr group. Or email it to us and we'll upload it for you.

Envelope workshop

On Saturday we had our first Envelope Sustainable Fashion Design workshop in the library at Craft Victoria. It was great. Some interesting and lovely people turned up to learn how to make their version of the Envelope.

Juliette had sailed with her sons and husband from Tahiti to Melbourne, Iris is a practicing metalsmith and jeweler, Mia is in her first year at RMIT fashion and Minuri studied film production and advertising.

We achieved a lot, in a short space of time - 3 hours. I really hope everyone continues the sewing practice and completes the exercise. The piece is so useful and fun. i would love to see the completed outfit online as part of the catwalk. some great fabrics were used and so would look good. Helen came in showing off some pieces from the rack, the wool and the Tyvek ones in the exhibition. Unfortunately, we were so busy exploring the potential of the garment on everyone after they had tacked their pieces together during the workshop that i forgot to take photos.

Next time - on the 29th.

From Anthea van Kopplen, designer of Envelope, as seen in our current show, How You Make It

envelope blog: 060308

"The envelope was called the envelope because initially the idea was to fold up a simple vessel, similar to paper origami, the making of palm leaf toys, weaving and boxes. By folding and refolding, playing with the shape that emerged, cutting away pieces of material and creating a waist the envelope became a thing. The folding of an envelope was particularly inspiring because an envelope is a container in terms of a vessel and a container for communication. Here are just some of the images that were explored at that time – in 2001. "



Anthea van Kopplen, participating designer How You Make It

Envelope

Image: Anthea van Kopplen, Taka and Crystal, location: Yarraville, Melbourne date: 21 02 2008, time: 12:30pm, photographer: Tomas Frimil

The idea for the envelope started in 1998 after seeing the 1998/9 collection by Issey Miyake. In the collection he collaborated with artist Shigeru Ban to create a collection from recycled paper. The outcome, did not appeal to me, but the process did. Making garments from paper. The garments reminded me of similar ideas in the 1960’s when disposable clothing became a trend as a response to a functional approach to fashion. This is how the idea for the envelope started - with Tyvek a 25% recycled content high density poly ethylene (HDPE) paper.

For me, the best thing that came out of designing the envelope is its accessibility. Anyone can make it. It is just a few straight lines of stitching and folding; and even more excitingly, to get to that point - was more than looking for a way to stitch a few straight lines! It was a battle of the hands and mind.

The envelope was never an end-point, not once in its creation was it intended to be a garment; it was not ever the aim of the design exercise. The envelope happened at a point of rationalisation (or frustration - depending on your viewpoint!).

The aim of the overall project, of which it was a part, was to design a fashionable and functional snowboarding jacket_which was designed later in response to findings from the envelope_the envelope was a turning point in thinking about how the snowboarding jacket could come together as a single pattern piece. So the envelope is a step in the making process and ideation (I don’t want to use the word conceptualisation – too much rhetoric – almost as much as ideation) during the design process! How cool is that! So the envelope is a point of flux in the design process that has been captured and stood still. The standing still is the making of the envelope! Cool, huh!, Anything could have happened at that point and something did. Why that is exciting is because it encourages the idea of design being an engaged process of design; a process that simultaneously uses the hands and the mind. It intervenes the idea of always looking beyond the design and planning phase to the end of the project. I like the idea of design being an inclusive, all pervading, full-body exercise, excluding neither form, function or visual beauty in its execution. I do not like the idea of design as only an ancillary, aesthetic, visually entertaining and superficial exercise.

I think the envelope achieves this first category - as does its snowboarding brother/sister The Square.

from Anthea van Kopplen,
Designer

Anthea's work features in How You Make It, which opened to the public today.

To download The Envelope pattern instructions, go to Craft Victoria's How You Make It website.