THE PROJECT

January 2023

Natural materials historically used in sailboats are interpreted into garments, including sailcloth, stitching techniques, wood, metal hardware, and ropes.

This hardware is placed throughout the clothing, their function reacting to the shape and construction of the cloth. The hardware facilitates the use of ropes, to creates possibilities for changing drape, closure, and even connections between the pieces.

The result in an outfit that can be intuitively styled, just as it was intuititively made.

DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

Starting from a fascination into my family history of sailing, this project evolved into a commentary on the overwhelming use of microplastic-shedding materials in the clothing and sailing industries. The challenge was to make an outfit using the materiality of the ‘boat,’ with only natural materials.

The first making experiments focused on hardware, embedding them in existing clothing as both motifs and tools to change the garment shape. The remainder of the components shown in the final outfit are entirely cotton, flax, hemp, and wood - materials that used to be the norm.