clear and thrilling. Entering the MA Fashion Design program in September 2023 here at the Cambridge School of Visual and Performing Arts (CSVPA) has spurred me to share, connect, and more quickly develop practical insights in this area. This challenge is a platform and an occasion for me to advance zero/minimal waste fashion design knowledge.

I have nine years of higher education as a student of philosophy, mathematics, computer science, and apparel technology: BA Philosophy degree from the University of Minnesota and AA Apparel Technology from Minneapolis College, MN, United States. In recent years, I was employed as the patternmaker for a high volume sportswear company and an outdoor soft goods company in Duluth, MN, United States. In both capacities, I was a design department of one, having full responsibility to deliver design solutions in close collaboration with production. I witnessed a painful volume of textile waste. Since 2019, I have been studying zero and minimal waste fashion design and its basic geometry. This year, I have also been researching the nesting algorithms used for the marker-making software of apparel production to glean insights for low waste design.

A sustainable system is one that can carry on in perpetuity. It is capable of enduring. The trouble with labeling a product as “sustainable” is that it relies on knowledge claims about the actions of all other producers and consumers and the wild ways of nature. For example, a trajectory may be a sustainable one, if the global population doesn’t rise, if we collectively act fast enough to avoid extreme drought conditions, if we protect the rain forests ...” It becomes problematic to make even the most general claims about sustainability under conditions of extreme uncertainty about how people and planet will behave. Sustainability has a somewhat impossible burden of proof. What can it really pin down to substantiate its hope?

Importantly, “sustainability” also represents an ethos of hopeful action we desperately need. It is, perhaps, an impossible ideal that we need to critique and promote at the same time. The science indicates that “the future will be utopian or not at all.” (Slavoj Zizek)

This award will accelerate my/our mission to reduce textile waste. Zero and minimal waste fashion design has been largely dismissed as a fringe pursuit of home sewers. The exposure and potential for mentoring attached to this award will be another small step towards the legitimization of zero/minimal waste fashion design as a serious tool that industry ought to invest in to dramatically reduce pre-production waste.

Title: Bottomfeeder

Bottomfeeder is a tool used to translate conventional garment pattern pieces into low waste patterns through small compromises at various points across a pattern. This is a pre-nesting re-design operation that adapts pattern pieces to be more (or much more) efficiently nested in a marker layout. A patternmaker’s knowledge of when and how to flex a line can be automated: first crudely and then better. I propose to outline the crude data chart structures and pseudocode for such a system using one garment type as an example. This project is a proof of concept.

The current compromises of zero/low waste fashion design are well known: ill-fitting garments that use too much fabric and take too much time to design. There is a gaping chasm where the necessary pattern science would be to propel the craft forward. The good news is that the next phase of foundational work is achievable. Think of other disciplines in their nascent phases, like physics and astronomy. Huge advancements were made by individuals through basic geometry and logic. That is where we are at with low waste fashion design. Leaps and bounds are within sight.

Running parallel, but not yet intersecting, is substantial academic infrastructure dedicated to advances in algorithms to more efficiently nest 2D shapes (like fabric pattern pieces) after they have been designed. The resulting marker making software is used by pattern cutters and technical designers in industry to make layout files to send to the cutting machine.

The goal of my project is to demonstrate how we can begin to connect pattern design and the nesting process of apparel production.

In general terms, workable data structures and standard operating procedures are needed to replace the prevailing ad hoc methodology of most zero/low waste design. While graphs of pattern data will lend themselves to eventual automation, Phase One will be their creation, organization, demonstration of use, and discussion of limitations. Phase One is an exploration of pre-nesting re-design and is characterized by adjusting pattern piece segments (rounding lengths and angles, etc.) in subtle and more dramatic ways so they are more efficiently nested for cutting.

First, workable data set structures can be developed by taking numbers from a traditional pattern (each cut line of a pattern piece has a length, angle, etc.) and charting what they can be, their maximum range of motion. This is a chart of tolerances. Can the line be half as long, twice as long and still fit the body? Can the shoulder angle change and how much? Must its cut line equal another line in the pattern and which one has priority? Must it not equal other lines? Can the pattern piece be rotated on the grainline? All of this can be charted to highlight the maximum flexibility of each piece to best accommodate others. Shared cut lines are ideal.

Once the range of freedom of each cut line in a pattern has been established, supporting charts can be made that account for fabric width, line equivalences, piece and line precedence, and other rules of pattern cutting. The rules of precedence will ultimately determine the re-design process.

Once some workable methods of pre-nesting re-design are better understood, they can be encoded and automated in Phase Two. Phase Two is beyond this project.

The eventual goal is to develop reliable tools for fashion designers to translate their vision into a low waste format. While this project does not attempt to get us there, insights will surely emerge that will show new possibilities and hope for a more efficient design process with more flattering results.

Relevant field(s): Design/Tech

Relevant audience: Manufacturers, Software Designers, Patternmakers, Citizens of the World

Project stage: Sketch

I have not been nominated to apply.