Favorite Technique of the Week!

We are having so much fun with the process of fabric manipulation for the Kara collection. It has gone beyond just the basics of painting and dying the fabric and expanded into other forms for example....

This past week Megan came up with a great concept for texture of the mini bomber jacket that I described in an earlier blog.

Megan wanted to give a sense of depth to the main body of the garment with an added ruggedness to it. To start, she took a dark green canvas fabric and sandpapered wholes throughout it and then sewed beautiful stay stitches around the holes to keep the fabric from continuously fraying. Underneath the top green layer of the fabric she placed strips of different fabric composed of bright patterns which allowed for different designs to peer out from behind each hole.

The overall effect is magnificent, a carefully crafted callousness overlaying bright beauty that out from behind. The symbolism of this piece is somewhat contrary to Kara's work whose top layer is bright and cheery, however the more you explore the art, the more the darker elements begin to shine through.

I love this rubbed out technique and could see it applied to many different projects. The only drawback of it is the labor involved. It took Megan 2 hours to sandpaper the holes into a very small amount of fabric, so this technique is not for the easily distracted. I really want to do more with this method but I think the key to doing it is a lot of this is to have a sandpapering party where each person sands for 5-10 minutes and then passes it on to the next person.

My philosophy of late is-- if something seems like too much labor find a way to still do it. One solution is to share it and make it fun. But there are many other solutions out there. Like I have stated in other blogs, Vagadu is a slow clothing movement, we don't want to cheat, we are about process and creating our vision however labor intensive if it accomplishes our goal. Because in the end it is worth it. The pride you will have for having done it, long outlast the fading memories of the struggles endured to create the piece.

(Note: We tried sandpapering the fabric technique and it is VERY advisable to use a dust mask when trying this, epecially if doing it indoors. The fibers in the fabric get into your nose and if you have asthma or allergies it could be pretty toxic.)