Kevin Almond

Fashionably Voluptuous: Repackaging the Fuller-Sized Figure

Abstract This article investigates the voluptuous female silhouette in fashion. Is it a superimposed image of a desired female form or a way of accentuating the ample assets of a larger-sized body? Body image has been identified as crucial to clothing provision and fashion consumption. Research has recognized that fuller-sized and obese people were considered unhappy, unconfident, unattractive, and identified a huge level of discrimination and negativity towards the overweight. Presenting and describing a body as voluptuous could be a more palatable way to repackage and reconceptualize the larger-sized. It is perhaps a more flattering description shrouding prejudices with regards to fashion, style, and garment selection. The investigation adopts a number of methodological approaches to identify the fashion choices available for voluptuous bodies and if these clothes involve levels of body modification. The research also suggests how the repackaged voluptuous body could continue to be represented in a future global marketplace.

‘Creative Cut’ The International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education

The call for papers for this special edition ‘Creative Cut’ evolved from a peer reviewed paper entitled ‘Insufficient Allure: The luxury and cost of creative pattern cutting’ published in The International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education in 2010. The paper built upon a limited amount of enquiry (British Fashion Council, 2000; Fischer, 2009; Joseph-Armstrong, 2008). It suggests that the role of the creative pattern cutter is an interpretation of the designer’s vision and therefore equitable with the position of the fashion designer, in terms of esteem and remuneration. The text and photographed garments from the paper were curated in an exhibition at Huddersfield Art Gallery, UK, in April 2012. Reviewed by international fashion journalist Brenda Polen, the exhibition provided a critical appraisal of the pattern cutter’s position as integral to creative design through its emphasis upon clothing compositions that show complex pattern cuts placed onto the body to create accentuated, original forms. This exhibition has now been acquired by Armley Industrial Museum, Leeds Museums and Galleries, UK and will form part of the ‘Behind the Seams’ exhibition, which celebrates skills within the fashion industry. Two further projects emerged from this. The first was an international peer-reviewed conference: ‘The First International Symposium for Creative Pattern Cutting’. This was held at the University of Huddersfield in the UK on 6 and 7 February 2013 and attracted over 160 international delegates from over 20 countries including India, USA, and much of Europe. It included 30 paper presentations from leading researchers and practitioners on aspects of creative pattern cutting. All the delegates felt it provided an excellent forum to discuss ideas and issues relating to creative cut. In the plenary session closing the conference the general consensus was that it become a bi-annual event. The second is this special edition ‘Creative Cut’ which publishes selected papers, presented at the conference. The conference and the special edition are highly significant to the fashion industry as both are potentially the first global initiatives to emphasise contemporary research into creative pattern cutting. The themes of the conference evolved into four definitive streams, which investigated digital-technology, eco-sustainable, pedagogical and fashioned approaches to creative cutting. The impact of the conference and journal is highlighted in peer-review feedback from the international review panel, delegates and presenters who described it as an exciting, timely and welcome event, extremely important to the fashion industry. The papers published here demonstrate some of the ideas discussed in the conference. They explore different perceptions of creative cut and how the level of craftsmanship in the pattern cutter can be the source of creativity whether it is through traditional or digital approaches. They also go some way to emphasise how we should not underestimate tacit knowledge and the making process as a form of enquiry. This is important in the drive to heighten awareness of fashion practice as a viable academic research topic. There is a strong divide between scholars/research professionals and practitioners. There is suspicion within both camps: the practitioner would question the credibility of the scholar who writes about fashion yet has little experience in designing and making clothes. Likewise, the scholar is suspicious of the practitioner who attempts to write and theorise about clothes. The papers in ‘Creative Cut’ base their understanding on evidence from observation, participation and investigation of pattern cutting practice, pattern cutters at work and interviews with pattern cutters. The different methodological approaches have added credibility with fashion educators and the wider design industry because the research results have been arrived at from practical experience. I hope you enjoy reading through ‘Creative Cut’. I would like to thank the editorial panel for all their hard work and commitment reviewing the manuscripts and the abstracts; Prof Winifred Aldrich, Dr Kevin Almond, Prof Susan P. Ashdown, Sylvia Ayton MBE, Kathryn Brennand, Christine Browett, Sean Chiles, Prof Wendy Dagworthy OBE, Hilary Hollingworth, Dr Betty Jackson CBE, Dr Julie King, Dr Catriona Mcara, Holly McQuillan, Brenda Polan, Dr Jess Power, Natalie Raw, Timo Rissanen, Prof Julian Roberts, Dr Kristina Shin, Dr Pammi Sinha, Irene Spink, Prof Steve Swindells, Anne Tyrrell MBE, and Carole Tulloch.

A Potential Dichotomy: Clothing, Fashion and the UK Apparel Industry

The research focuses upon the production of apparel in the UK, in order to explore a potential dichotomy between clothing and fashion. Both the terms suggest ways in which the body can be dressed and are used liberally within industries that produce apparel. I consider the currency of sociologist, Georg Simmel’s theory, which identified no fundamental links between the clothing and fashion. In fashion. Clothing is usually constructed with textile materials worn on the physique and is worn by human beings, in the majority of societies. The quantity and style of clothing depends on bodily, societal and environmental considerations, including gender. In contrast fashion is a common term for a popular style in clothing, footwear or accessories and is usually, the newest collection or creation produced by a designer or retailer. The UK designer, Jean Muir regarded herself as a dressmaker and implied there was conflict between the production of clothes and the role of the fashion designer in this process. The investigation seeks to offer new insight into existing research related to clothing and fashion, by centering upon the production of apparel in the UK and the specific needs of the highly developed, UK fashion and clothing educational system. In so doing it identifies how the terms are perceived today, in both the UK and global apparel industries.

Reflections on Sculptural Thinking in Fashion

Abstract What does it mean to think sculpturally in fashion practice? This paper explores some of the philosophical and practical aspects of three-dimensional thinking in fashion design; it does this by engaging with theories, concepts and philosophies related to thought and the experience of creating three-dimensional artifacts, which are common to both sculpture and fashion. Central to this relationship is the employment of the senses with respect to perception and cognition. Of particular interest is the sense of touch, and how sensory experience encounters notions of empathy and mimicry in a phenomenological encounter with others: whether animate or inanimate. The research emerged through conversations between a fashion designer, Kevin Almond, and a contemporary artist, Stephen Swindells. The sensibility of the paper, and much of the analysis and debates, thus explore these issues from a creative practitioner’s perspective. A conceptual current running through the conversation, and subsequently the paper, touched upon whether following a line of thought becomes analogous to visually and mentally tracing a human form in a psychological space—and what is the significance for fashion of the interrelationships between sculptural thinking and phenomenological encounters with others within urban environments.

The Status of Pattern Cutting

Abstract This commentary documents the journey of several research initiatives, which focused upon creative pattern cutting. Instigated by a peer-reviewed journal paper entitled, “Insufficient Allure: The Luxurious Art and Cost of Creative Pattern Cutting”, the endeavors attempted to elevate concepts of tacit knowledge and the making process as a form of legitimate, academic enquiry. The projects culminated in the first peer-reviewed conference dedicated to the discipline: the First International Symposium for Creative Pattern Cutting, held at the University of Huddersfield in the UK, in February 2013. To trace the impact of the research initiatives, the commentary considers how the skills of the pattern cutter clothe the body with a myriad of shapes and silhouettes. This is discussed in relation to the different pattern cutting techniques that can be utilized to realize three-dimensional form and ways in which the research enterprises have arguably elevated the professional position of the cutter in terms of esteem and remuneration. In order to assess the impact of these initiatives, both within the fashion industry and in the emerging arena of fashion research, some of the different research approaches utilized in practice-based enquiry are identified, along with how results can be arrived at from hands-on experience, inspiring us to develop new ways to pattern cut.

Second Skin: Investigating the Production of Contoured Patterns for the Theatrical Costume Industry

This paper discusses research into pattern cutting via mould-making techniques for body-conscious, contoured clothing used in the theatrical costume industry (film, television and theatre). With their considerable experience as costume makers, the authors recognized a gap in knowledge and documentation for this approach to pattern cutting. The intentions were to expand the range of techniques available for theatrical costume professionals, allowing practitioners to draw complex style lines directly onto the body shape and onto inanimate objects. The research explored different approaches through a series of three-dimensional experiments, which included contouring the body with moulds to achieve sculptural or abstract forms and discovering the capabilities, advantages and restrictions of the technique. The enquiry includes a variety of methodologies, which investigated the practical, technical and historical background to contoured pattern cutting. Object-based research considered the design and manufactur...

Fashion in peril: an investigation into how fashion mirrored change in UK society

This article investigates and compares how fashion reacted to the deprivations of the Second World War, with similar deprivation, in the economic recession, beginning in 2008. This resulted in many parallel initiatives that have either been revived or have evolved. The initiatives often threaten recognised systems of fashion, design and consumption. It is driven underground only to re-emerge in different interpretations. Indeed, a backlash against ostentation has been a driving force in sustainable fashion, which emerged before the recession. Consumers embraced an environmental consciousness that radically altered perceptions towards fashion products and the messages they sent out to the world. The article also details how final year fashion design students were set a live two-day brief that asked them consider the concept of ‘fashion in peril’. This exercise introduced students in a practical way to how fashion can mirror change in society and also how a sense of individual style and fashion can be maintained in a crisis.