Final Outcome Designcamp Kolding

DesignCamp 2011: On making the intangible tangible from Designskolen Kolding on Vimeo.

KOLDING DESIGN CAMP 2011

Kolding School of Design

Just a week after starting my MA Fashion and the Environment at London College of Fashion I am told I was chosen to go a fully funded Design Camp in Denmark! Exciting! It's a 2 week long project between the renowned design school in Kolding, Denmark, and lots of top schools in the world. From LCF 2 other girls, Emma and Steph, are here and from the UK also 2 students from Kingston.  Students are from different deisgn backgrounds, so we have furniture, fashion, managements, communication and many more fields working together.

Speaker Cecialia Katzoff  on visualising electricity

One of many brainstorms

The theme this year is "Electricity - From the Intangible to the Tangible and from the Tangible to the Wonderful!". I am one week in, one to go. Last week consisted of brainstorming after brainstorming (heaps of post its). We also had experts hold lectures and talk to us. And by Friday we had the core idea which we are going to spend next week realizing. Our pitch sounds a little bit like this...

How may we take advantage of excess wind energy to create an emotional communal experience through the medium of light to increase awareness of electricity and its use.

Saturday some of us spent in Copenhagen, a beautiful and 

a book i fell in love with in Copenhagen

Amongst all the fashion books with styled, polished looks, I found this an original source of inspiration.

Clean Batik Initiative in the press

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/aug/23/indonesia-batik-makers-sustainable-methods

I am very glad to be reporting about the CBI again, as now they have come as far making it into the British Press! When I spoke to them, just over a year ago in Jakarta, they were only in their launching phase. This has spurred me on to get in touch with them to find out more, as the article is held quite general.

In Indonesia batik has regained popularity in the last couple of years and there is a lot of "fake" i.e. printed batik on polyester fabrics imported from China. In my Anglindo project I was experimenting with using less conventional patterns and motifs but the traditional wax method. Ideally I would be doing this the new, cleaner way.

It would be interested to know where this batik can be sourced from, if they take special orders and if there is any kind of guarantee for following certain guidelines.

taped

by Buff Diss

by Anna Garforth

... I like.

the girl effect

Simplified but great graphics and yes, you do get the picture. Spotted on http://www.believe-blog.com

details - melting tags

These clothes tags were created to reduce the volume of waste - tags made if soap instead of paper, so when you send you new item of clothing throught he wash, your tag will be dissolved with it. Clever clever. Well, quite clever anyway! Different websites suggest however that this idea is only halfbaked as mention of its carbon footprint or whether the soap is made of environmentally friendly materials is lacking. Ah yes, it's never that that simple is it. However, my opinion lies somewere between that of the blind enthusiasts and the supercritical: I think it is important to consider all the details around clothing manufacture to be addressed  in innovative ways, but don't forget to question. Hopefully people's knowledge and curiosity will help distiguish between ideas with true potential and ones created for a gimmic to jump onto the green bandwagon.

... Speaking of innovations. How amazing is this biomimetic concept taken from snakes shedding their skins to fabrics shedding layers to reduce their laundering impact. Check out the vid on her website or the London College of Fashion website I found this on.

Double-Break

During an inspiring break in Thailand and Laos, a fibula was broken (not mine, but being a nurse is time-consuming). This prolonged the planned break and my return to this blog will commence as soon as I have something break-unrelated and somehthing scrabbooklet-relevant to blog about (and there are exciting little things in the pipeline!).

In the meanwhile, a  slow internet connection is testing my patience on the hill-tops of Bandung. Tomorrow I shall return to some productive hours at the studio however. What has succeeded in loading is my google search for Vivienne Westwood launching an ethical fashion project, which I heard about on a friend's blog.

(Image: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/resources/images/money/travel/air-security-2-08/overview/suitcase.jpg&imgrefurl)

Also, I came accros this brilliant graphic (bikes gobbling up an SUV) while browsing (ommmm, the page will load, rub them earlobes). I agree that designers are pushed to think out the box these days to convey environmental messages and the developments are exciting to  be part of.

(Image: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/01/bicycles-eat-suv.php)

Love from Anja Anglindo
(who will be in Indonesia just for another 3.5 weeks)

P.S. Just glimpsed on treehugger.com that organic cotton production has increased 15% in 2010 which is fabulous news!

... This post started off with the intention of writing one sentence but I realize how much I have missed the blogging; I do enjoy it. Might be superbusy with my last few weeks here as well as moving back to half way across to globe again but shall blog again before toooo long.