Every year the Dutch Design Week takes place in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, to showcase designers and innovations from the Netherlands and all over the world, concentrating on the designs of the future. During 9 days 2600 participating designers spread over more than 100 locations in Eindhoven showed the latest developments from the design field to more than 350,000 visitors from home and abroad.

With the theme ‘If not now, then when’ Dutch Design Week 2019 called for action to embrace sustainability and a more circular economy. Fashion tech and sustainable textiles are an important part of this transition. The fashion sector needs to become ready for a future that is more sustainable and digital. Here is what you missed:

Seamless 3D textile shapes from UNSEAM

UNSEAM developed a technology that creates seamless 3D textile shapes into textiles by digitally programming local shrinkage based on special material properties. Their textiles can shape themselves into garments using (unconventional) biobased materials, such as textile from apple waste, hemp, flax and even jelly fish!

Local & sustainable wool from The Knitwit Stable

The Knitwit Stable believes that it is possible to process and produce wool in a sustainable way. An important step to attain this goal is to bring the manufacturing of wool back again to the Netherlands on a small scale. In collaboration with Joe Merino, they developed a traditional Dutch men’s sweater with wool from local Dutch sheep and knitted in the Netherlands.

Recycling vibrant wax fabrics by Simone Post

Simone won the prize for Young Designer at the Dutch Design Awards! Her aesthetic and innovative reuse of materials is the central theme in her work. She collaborates with many brands. Together with Vlisco, the Dutch textile manufacturer known for its bold and vibrant wax fabrics, she made beautiful carpets out of waste cloth. For Adidas, she used old sneakers to make clothing and carpet tiles for their Adidas stores. Her inventions make new value out of material that would otherwise be thrown away.

Students from the Eindhoven University of Technology are ‘Drivers of Change’

Eindhoven University of Technology presented the latest developments in the field of innovation with ‘Drivers of Change’, designed by their students. Brigitte van der Lugt makes smart garments for stress reduction. Garments are a natural interface to the human body and enable practical ways to anchor stress reduction in the rituals of daily life. She made an aesthetically pleasing soft actuator in a garment, which is realized by embroidery of conductive yarn, to be used as both a subtle break reminder or as a tool guiding breathing exercises.

Digital fashion by The Fabricant

This digital fashion house, co-founded by Amber Jae Slooten who graduated from the Amsterdam Fashion Institute, shows the world that clothing does not need to be physical to exits. Representing an entire collection solely in digital form is an industry game changer away from product photography. The Fabricant is an alternative and a valuable addition to existing photo and film content. A clever combination of digital products such as virtual and augmented reality can better inform clients and promote brands leading to higher conversions, less returns and better service on all channels.

Personalized knitting by New Industrial Order

The current fashion system is built on pushing more clothes into the market than we can ever wear. Our planet cannot carry this anymore. This must change. But how? New Industrial Order (N.I.O) is a personalized-fashion laboratory. Their mission is to enable knitwear on demand for the fashion industry. 3D knitwear is clothing that is produced in one piece, without cutting, without seams and without waste. N.I.O uses 3D knit machines as 3D printers to make personalized clothing on a large scale. Every product is paid by pre-order before it is produced. The result: less consumption and waste, more quality and luxury.

Fashion in (augmented) reality by Studio PMS

Experiencing fashion designs in a realistic way, without actual clothes physically present. That is how Studio PMS constructed a unique and immersive installation bridging the gap between physical product and augmented reality. By using their app, digital mannequins came to live on Bolon’s latest flooring collection.

Rethinking plastic to design with a mission

At the Rethinking plastic exhibition, 25 designers approached the plastic crisis as a design challenge. Jenny Netten made the Soup dress from recycled PET bottles, one dress is made from 17 plastic bottles! France was also represented: French-Mexican designer Anne-Sophie Flores from l’Ecole de design Nantes Atlantique developed a biodegradable plate from corn as an alternative to polystyrene that is often used at barbecues and for takeaway meals and hamburgers.

Future talents at the New Order of Fashion

New Order of Fashion selected the most imaginative and forward minded international design students that dare to challenge ruling conventions, systems, constructs and borders. Their outstanding graduation projects address urgent universal topics as diverse as the sweeping effects of climate change and cries for environmental and social justice and an even playing field for cultural and gender diversity. Like Bodil, who combined a specific technic from Burkina Faso used to makes a luxurious fabric (called Bazin-riche) with her skills learned at the Dutch Gerrit Rietveld Academie to make a unique piece.

 

Don’t want to miss the Dutch Design Week again? Next year the event take place from 19 to 27 October 2020. Save the date!

Source: Dutch Design Week Foundation