Lu Flux

I'm not sure about the rest of you but I am a wee bit jealous of Lu Flux...Past assistant of the incredible Bernhard Wilhelm, with a bunch of awards and enviable mentorships under her belt, she has also presented her collections in London, Paris, Tokyo and Amsterdam! All of this has been achieved on her own terms with no compromise to her design dignity or ethics. Each collection is refreshingly original with complete disregard to trends or any other nonsense.

Her current collection "A Lu Ha" features a soft palette of textured details and a few highlights of brights. Tiki motifs and tropical vibes are mixed with a collage of english floral,it's a perfect example of Lu Flux style. With her Autumn/Winter collection due out in the coming months, we can expect to be wowed again very soon..

How do you start the creative process for each collection?
We start with experimenting with techniques and manipulations to see what works and then with the selected techniques, we develop them further and then place and build them into garments.

Can you tell your favourite part about working for Berhnard Wilhelm?Any valuable wisdom learnt?
Well having lunch with Bjork was fun! Working with Berhnard Wilhelm reaffirmed to me that it is possible to have a successful fashion label without a focal point of glamour and sex.

The fashion industry tends to take itself quite seriously, how do you keep a balance of fun and excitement whilst maintaining a viable business?
My business is my absolute passion and I think that because I am so passionate about what I do, it keeps the mood upbeat while maintaining a high level of productivity. I work extremely hard and try not to pay attention to trends


How do you source your fabric?
I have always appreciated and supported British manufactures and the use of local produce so I am always researching to discover more. My collections revolve around the vintage and salvaged materials that I find by working with recycling companies. It is satisfying and fulfilling to address the disposable side of the fashion industry by making something new out of something old.

What was it like growing up in the Isle of Wight?
When I was growing up I found the Isle of Wight boring and couldn’t wait until I could leave but now when I think about it, I really had a blissful childhood. It continues to be a wonderful escape from the intense city environment.

What led you to London?
It did take me a while to come round to the idea but I moved to London for the reasons a lot of people move to London, for the opportunities and the advantages of being in one of the fashion hubs. Unfortunately I don't think I will be able to live in a countryside haven for a few years yet.

What's next?
It is top secret but we are currently building ideas and experimenting garment shapes and techniques for our Autumn Winter 2012 collection. Soon to be revealed! Read more...

Transparent Seams at Sydney Design Festival

A.L.A.S and Transparent Seams is putting on an exhibition and workshop as a part of this years Sydney Design festival.

The exhibition and workshop acts as a bridge to reconnect consumers to their clothes, to inspire people’s involvement in the design process and explore solutions to updating or bringing new life to their discarded clothing! Guests will be invited to watch the design and production process that transforms disused... clothing into completely new garments; we will be turning armholes into necklines, necklines into bustles and shirts into skirts!

A one off practical workshop will coincide with the exhibition giving guests the tools to up-cycle their favourite old t-shirt or an unwanted garment from their wardrobe. This project will incite passive consumers to re-connect with their clothing through creative and fun solutions to breathe new life and meaning to their garments. By creating something new but keeping element of the old garment, the clothing’s history and life is extended and consumer becomes the creator.

Please come along!

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SOSUME

Simply put, Sosume is a label for the future,. With refined collections, high quality products and a transparent sensibility, we can easily see the reasoning behind each process and decision. Alex Trimmer, founder of the Australian based label offers his thoughts on the legality of careless creation, carpooling to work and the benefits of supporting local manufacturers.

Why fashion? How did SOSUME start?
It all started over in NY when I was finishing my degree as an exchange student. I felt there was a gap in the US market for “non-hippy” styled eco-friendly clothing. Everything I was seeing was fairly unimaginative when it came to colour palettes and fabric content. SOSUME was born to show that you can still wear cutting edge designs with amazing fabrics that actually wear and feel better than conventional fabrics. I launched the collection back home in Australia in late 2008.

What’s your opinion on contemporary fashion production?
If you’re referring to fast fashion, I think it’s awful and laws need to be made to stop it happening. Think of what an eighty-nine dollar nylon “leather” jacket does to a landfill and what it did to the local environment to get to the finished product.

How do you start a new collection?
A combination of what I see on the street mixed with traditional cuts and tailoring and ultimately, the fabrics I find. I’m limited to what I can use so I really have to find the fabrics first then think of the best ways to use them. The market for modern, sustainable fabrics is very small but growing so it’s a long process but well worth the effort. There are some remarkable materials out there.

What is your biggest source of inspiration?
As above. The biggest source is the fabric. I’ve always like men’s aesthetics but cut for a woman. I love traditional, timeless pieces and a quality make. When I find a fabric that I love, I try to think of all the different ways that it can be used to bring it to its fullest potential.

How would you describe your latest collection?
Easy, simple, breezy summer. I wanted to extend the jersey basics and introduce woven shirting. I like to build on previous collections and progressively add more and more complicated pieces. Its what makes me look forward to the next season!


Going back to the more ethical side of things..your label seems to have a sustainable element, why is this important?
Because it’s the only way forward. SOSUME proves you don’t have to wear a potato sack or sacrifice your style in order to wear something that is sustainable. The whole basics line uses micro modal, which only uses a tenth of the amount of water to produce each item than its cotton counterpart. The fabric feels sublimely soft, doesn’t effect the skin, will hold shape twice as long as cotton and also will hold its colour for twice as long too. It also is biodegradable so won’t fill up the dump at the end of the product life. This is a major concern with “fast fashion”.


You mention you garments are both organic and natural, roughly what percent is organic?
Actually, it depends on seasons. Some seasons I use organic cotton and organic wool among other natural or man-made fabrics while other seasons we just use man-made and natural. These new, modern man-made fabrics are actually the greatest thing the industry has seen as far as I know. They are created with the environment in mind and are designed to replace their harmful cousins such as rayon, viscose and others. The entire collection, doesn’t matter which season, is always made from only natural and organic fabrics. I just hope that the mills out there keep developing unique and beautiful fabrics to use!

Why produce in Australia? Why is this important and how does it affect your process?
Quality control. Simple as that. I also think it’s vital to support the industry that supports you. The manufacturing industry in Australia seems to be ailing but there are some great makers out there and it feels good to support them. It makes the process much quicker. If there needs to be an alteration, it’s easily done through a phone call and a visit. I couldn’t imagine the drama one would face when working with overseas factories. I like to work closely with my makers to develop the very best product.

What do you hope for the future of fashion?
For all labels to try and minimise their impact on the environment, whether it’s through their fabrics, their supply chains, their stock management, or even their employees’ carpooling to work! Every change for good makes a difference. It’s simple.

Check out Alex's website here, you can find out all his collections,fabric and production info..truly the way it should be...



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Titania Inglis

So frequently we hear about the influences or muse behind designers. But not too often do we hear ‘zero waste’ on their list of inspirations.New York based designer Titania Inglis seems to be saying just that. Of course she is still inspired by the usual suspects of visual and musical culture but she is deeply motivated to create the perfect minimum waste garment.

Why fashion?
I started at design school planning to do graphic design but it was the tangible aspects that drew me to fashion; the feel of different fabrics, the satisfaction in creating a row of precise stitches, the magic of going from a vague idea in your head to a physical creation that you can wear every day. I also love fashion as communication, how people choose to portray themselves to the world through clothes. I keep my own wardrobe tightly edited but within that there’s a lot of room for play. I can be ladylike and vintage-inspired one day, deconstructed and super-modern the next.

Can you tell us more about your minimal waste design process?
For my Spring/Summer 2011 collection, the Almost Zero collection, I took two approaches to zero waste. One was to use bias cuts. Because woven fabric stretches on the diagonal, known as the bias, I turned the fabric diagonally and was able to make garments out of triangles and rectangles without leaving much in the way of scrap. The other approach was to use 3-D origami folding, taking an entire rectangle of fabric and pinning and draping it onto the form to create geometric shapes

Why sustainability?

I grew up in a hippie town and have been a lifelong environmentalist. There’s a lot of room for improvement within the fashion industry. If I can do my tiny part to advance sustainable practices by showing the world that a line can be both thoughtfully produced and beautifully designed, it’ll have been more than worth my time.

Why is this all important to you?
One reason I love making clothes is that they’re universal; virtually everyone wears clothes every day. That being said, the worldwide garment industry is huge and has a correspondingly huge impact on the world’s environment. For example, the blue-dyed rivers in China are a result of terrible industry practices and it doesn’t have to be that way. The world is so overflowing with stuff right now, with cast-off products of our society, that I was a bit reluctant to start a business creating products at all. But in the end I realized that it was possible to run my business in such a way that does good rather than harm. So I choose to support fabric mills that make organic fabrics and I choose to support craftsmanship by hiring skilled craftspeople, sewers and cutters and pattern graders, to create my clothes.

Does this sustainable concept flow into your daily life?
If anything, it’s that my daily life flows into my design. I try to waste as little as possible in life as well as in design. I recycle religiously, including my fabric scraps; I compost, I ride my bike almost everywhere, I turn off lights and computers, and I try to eat locally grown food whenever possible.

What else inspired your most recent collection?
For Fall/Winter 2011, the mood was inspired by the Lykke Li and xx albums I listened to while designing it. The color palette came from the gloriously mossy colors I saw on a trip to Iceland this winter.

To create the silhouettes, I delved deeper into minimalism, playing with cutting away and paring back: I literally cut out the back of last fall’s Wrap Jacket to make the new Cutaway Jacket, and then echoed that silhouette in the Arc Skirt. The Swing Top was my first attempt to drape a top in one piece and then I riffed on that to create the Slash Back Top and the Shift Dress.

You have a very keen eye for unusual construction. What inspires you to create these shapes?
Because I use mostly organic fabrics I’m forced to start my designs with new fabrics each season as there’s so little out there to choose from. I spend a great deal of my time searching for new, beautiful, and sustainably produced fabrics to put into the collection. The few fabrics I fall in love with become the basis for the new collection.

Growing up as an architect’s daughter, I learned a lot from my dad about experimenting with materials to create new forms. I believe in using the properties of the material to push the boundaries of what it can do, rather than forcing things to be what they’re not. So for example, my circle skirt and circle dress from FW10 came from playing with shapes I could create with a single piece of fabric. Using heavier fabrics, I also made the origami bustle skirts from SS11 and the funnel skirt from FW11 from a single pattern piece; while the bias tees from SS11 were an attempt to take a very 1930s technique and turn it to a more contemporary purpose, the archetypal T-shirt.

Whats next?
Even though it bears my name, I started this line partly as a platform to collaborate with some of the talented people around me. As the line grows and develops, I’m planning to branch out next season into working with more of Brooklyn’s incredible creative types, including natural dyers, accessory designers, and set designers.

Check out Titanias blog it has some great info about what’s going on in the world, in Brooklyn and all of her inspiration.

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