Fashion Designer MICHONS MARIGOT, whose practice involves large scale and bright prints took a different approach for her FW16 collection, OF NATURE. Textiles remain the main focus for the collection, but instead of designing her own series of prints and working with different techniques to create a vibrant range of clothing, she instead decided to create a small and pointed collection that employed only natural materials, down to the silk thread for top-stitching. She paid attention to cut, style and wearability, still with an air of sporty whimsy and an overall eclecticism.
Whenever possible, Michons uses sustainable fashion practices for her work. This means using recycled and repurposed materials, carefully planning sourcing and cutting in order to ensure the least wastage possible, as well as using materials that do not harm the environment. This collection in particular took her desire to design ethically and sustainably further and use only natural materials. What was of greatest importance, however, was to maintain the integrity of the MICHONS MARIGOT ethos-to create a collection that did not compromise vision, functionality and cohesiveness.
There is always a desire to make something new when Michons is designing, with a mindfulness and great consideration of the past. This collection uses sustainable design practices and materials, but and was created with a future plan and process in mind to build upon the initial collection and in turn prolong the life of the clothing for the consumer. By having a built in option for easy transformation and rejuvenation through customized natural dying, a cycle was created. In their present form, the garments are all off-white and ready to be dyed.
Michons recently discovered the wonderful world of natural dyeing. Her aptitude for textile manipulation techniques and processes, in tandem with her deep understanding and appreciation for colour and the power it holds, made this an opportunity she had to explore.
What is interesting however, is how powerful the collection is with a complete lack of colour.
The OF NATURE lookbook was shot by Toronto photographer Katrina Cervoni using an analog film camera. The shots are bright, clear and very clean. This is an effect that works well with the collection as it is using old, traditional methods to instead create something new.
The proposed work is presenting a selection of the photos from the OF NATURE lookbook and re-imagining them using traditional handwork techniques such as embroidery and applique, over fabric heat transfers of the images onto canvas.
This will present the works in a visually organic way and uses both technical and mechanized processes, fabric printing, photography in unison with traditional hand work techniques.
The photos will be printed in Sepia or black and white and the embroidery will be in cream and off white tones to build depth and dimension while the applique will recreate the garments using actual scrap fabric from the collection.
Finally, dried flowers, onion skins and other natural dye pigments will be used to decorate the pieces and create a multimedia work of art the shows all stages of the collection design and manufacturing process-A collection map. There will be a total of four images, one for each outfit in the collection. The works will be dyed or partially dyed in their respective dye bath.
The new images created will instead represent the work in all its separate parts and show a contrast from how the designer and photographer presented a collection with so many organic elements in a very clean polished way. This presents a compelling and contradictory representation of sustainable fashion.
A final consideration is the relationship between the photographer and designer. For the OUT OF FASHION-Imagining Sustainable Fashion program, the idea for the proposed submission from Michons Marigot is to build up from the photograph and to expose the “insides” of the initial project. With the OF NATURE collection and lookbook, Katrina’s photographs were the final presentation of the body of work and in turn, for Imagining Sustainable Fashion, now act as a foundation for a new project. The added works are a deconstruction of the final product and reveal all the labour, thought and materials that went into garments and later the photographs taken by Katrina Cervoni.
This work should be shown for two reasons-One, it presents ethical and sustainable fashion in a different light as well as demonstrating that the power of the designer is great in that they have the ability to create any image or representation that they desire for their work and ultimately have it express or show whatever they want it to.
The other reason is that it shows that all work requires process and most of the processes and thoughts that go into a final piece, or work are never seen, or can be completely contradictory to the end result-as it is here. However, each one of these elements were necessary and informed the final statement.
