Author’s dedication: To my mother Stella Published in 2015 by Laurence King Publishing Ltd 361–373 City Road London EC1V 1LR Tel +44 20 7841 6900 Fax +44 20 7841 6910 E [email protected] www.laurenceking.com Design copyright ©2014 Laurence King Publishing Limited Text copyright ©2014 Melanie Bowles www.melaniebowles.co.uk Melanie Bowles has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 178067 470 4 Designed by Jane Chipchase-Bates Project Editor: Gaynor Sermon Printed in China Print, Make, Print, Make, Wear Wear .......................... .......................... Creative Projects for DiCgriteaal tTiveex tPilreo jDeecstsig fno r Digital Textile Design .................................................... MeMlaenlaien iBe oBwolwesles anadn Tdh Teh Pee Poepolep’lse ’Psr Pinrtint 1 1 2 CONTENTS DIGITAL Paintbrush Post-Modern Floral Play DESIGN Melanie Bowles Melanie Bowles TUTORIALS Page 10 Page 24 6 7 8 Bargello Dahlia Clara’s Dress Skirt Patchwork Melanie Bowles Melanie Bowles Clara Vuletich 00 Page 68 Page 82 Page 94 12 13 14 Stitched Made in Modern by Jane Brixton Folk Jane Bates Kathryn Round Dr Emma Neuberg Page 136 Page 146 Page 158 4 3 4 5 Easy Boy Vintage Floral Hackney Check Collage Lights Melanie Bowles Melanie Bowles Ruth Esmé Mitchell Page 36 Page 46 Page 58 9 10 11 Digital Colour Monotone Shibori Me In Man Joanna Fowles Nina Chakrabarti Henry Muller Page 106 Page 118 Page 128 Digitally printing your fabric Page 170 Making your garment Page 172 Pattern designers and digital print bureaus Page 174 RESOURCES Acknowledgments & credits Page 176 5 FOREWORD Once upon a time, if you wanted to print There is also a much larger cultural some fabric to make a new blouse you had implication and big-vision philosophy behind to look in the telephone directory and cold Print Make Wear that sits silently beneath call a printer who would tell you that, after a the surface. This is a best-practice ethos with prohibitive set-up fee, they could offer you a a nod to sustainable development and new minimum run of 500 metres. And that’s if you ‘maker models’ developed over many years were lucky! Of course, you didn’t need 500 by the author (and The People’s Print). An metres, you only needed two. The design you example of one such best practice aspect had in mind was lovely and original and you relates to DIY culture and consumer-centred could really picture yourself wearing it, but design. Broadly speaking, this marks a with no way to print it you gave up and went cultural shift in consumers’ attitudes by to a high-street store instead. There, you’d end challenging the individual’s relationship with up buying a printed blouse that thousands of passive consumerism and, in particular, the other people owned in order to temper your consumption of mass-produced fashion. disappointment and frustration By giving the individual tools and know- At long last, this scenario is a thing of the how to make their own designs, prints and past. Thanks to contemporary digital printing clothes (in an accessible and professional technology, there are now dozens of digital way), new ideas and methods of production printers in many countries who print two are envisaged, new opportunities arise and metres of fabric at the click of a button and new forms of industry and community are at an affordable cost. Melanie Bowles and stimulated. This echoes past technological The People’s Print have created this book to catalysts for spurring localized industry, allow you to develop inspirational projects for example the Spinning Jenny (the first and transform these into professional print- mechanized spinning frame) in the eighteenth ready designs. The tutorials help you to avoid century and the domestic sewing machine the pitfalls of making generic digitally printed in the nineteenth century, both of which fabrics using old-fashioned effects such as transformed the textiles industry into entirely tile repeats and mirror tools. She enables new, never-seen-before industrial enterprises. you to fast track to sophisticated design, professional-level skills and new clothes that The DIY design revolution that is at your you, your friends and family will love. Gone fingertips in Print Make Wear promises a are the days of hampered creativity! similar revolution – a contemporary catalyst 6 for change, empowerment and enterprise likely to see themselves as just consumers. – that promises to shift the fashion-making Themes of textiles and sustainability arose landscape into a new paradigm yet again. through the fast pace of fashion consumption that increased exponentially over the last Print Make Wear acts as a bridge between ten years (with retailers promoting dozens ideas and making, presented in an accessible, of fashion seasons each year). Such speed easy-to-follow way. As Melanie knows from and its broad anti-sustainable effects were her role as a senior lecturer in Printed Textiles seen as so grave that even NGO organizations at Chelsea College of Art and Design, much such as Greenpeace addressed them in of art college training is about developing ‘Toxic Threads: The Big Fashion Stitch-Up’. a sophisticated vision and aptitude for The media has regularly reported on people the process of ideation to realization in who were throwing away their clothes after the students. Such precious knowledge is just one wearing or as soon as they were distilled in these pages – a boon for amateurs, ‘out of date’… professionals and graduates alike. This is the contextual background From a business point of view, the function from which Print Make Wear rises. Not only of this book is multilayered. Not only does are the projects beautiful and inspiring, but it stimulate exciting new opportunities for they also present a new starting point from the printers, their suppliers, fans and clients, which to empower, enable and invigorate a it creates new business opportunities for counter-culture, bespoke fashion, new skills individual makers, supports young companies and exciting new maker communities. that have limited time to develop new CAD skills and stimulates the cottage industry Dr Emma Neuberg businesses that are the backbone of so many www.thepeoplesprint.com economies. From a cultural point of view, the tutorials in this book stimulate people’s skills during an era that at times has been fearful of losing its local craft, making and manufacturing skills. The stimulation of design and production skills is important in this case as it not only empowers people but if individuals produce things they are less 7 DIGITAL DESIGN TUTORIALS 10