On paradigm shifts and industrial revolutions: tracing prevalent dressmaking practices and apparel production systems in the Netherlands and northwest Europe (1850-2016).

My paper On paradigm shifts and industrial revolutions: tracing prevalent dressmaking practices and apparel production systems in the Netherlands and northwest Europe (1850-2016) was recently presented at the 19th IFFTI (International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes) conference in Amsterdam. The article got the first price for the category Postgraduate/Research students. See the abstract and download the full paper below.

ABSTRACT

Personalization, production on-demand, and flexible manufacture facilities are growing within the European apparel sector, supported by national and regional public policy. These developments seem to embody a much waited “paradigm shift” in the fashion industry; a shift from global to local scale, from quantity to quality and from standard products to personalized services. Such values, however, are far from new, and scholars have already pointed out the similarities between emerging and pre-industrial systems of production and consumption. This article argues that in order to understand current developments in historical context, we should return to the process of industrialization of the apparel industry during the turn from the 19th to the 20th C, taking into account aspects of production as much as mediation and consumption. With this aim in mind, the article traces the rise of ready-made garments in the Netherlands and northwest Europe, and the associated decline in custom- and home-made garments in the region. Although available statistical data is insufficient to accurately map these phenomena, secondary sources suggest that both processes were not simultaneous and therefore there was not a straightforward substitution of custom- and home-made clothing by ready-mades. While availability and trade of mass-produced ready-mades was escalating since the early 19th C, it was not until mid 20th C that custom- and home-made clothing declined among the middle class. In this study, such a gap is explained by a steady increase in the amount of clothes acquired per person: an expanding culture of consumption during the period under consideration may have enabled these different systems to flourish all together. A parallelism of the findings above with current developments suggests that we should not regard emergent industrial formats as substitutionary of established ones, but as complementary. We may then reevaluate to what extent does the rise of the flexible factory enable a “revolution”, a shift from a problematic present to a contrasting and desirable future. This historical overview indicates that, on the contrary, emerging product-service-systems manufacturing personalized garments on-demand must be considered in relation to – and in coexistence with- traditional industrial models.

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"Attachment, Durability and the Environmental Impact of Digital DIY" finally published!

After a couple of years waiting, this article was published at The Design Journal (Taylor & Francis) last month. This is the main outcome of the Embedded Research project "Object-user relationships in open design dynamics", a collaboration between Waag Society and VU University developed in 2012-2013. The full article can be downloaded for free here: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/ynW9faES5IzKZ5Fii8Dz/full

Embedded Research results

Readers interested on digital DIY, attachment and durability can now see a summary of our Embedded Research results at Waag Society's blog.

“Object-user relationships in open design dynamics” was an embedded research of the Faculty of Arts (VU University Amsterdam) in collaboration with Waag Society (Institute of Art, Science and Technology): 15/9/2012 – 15/6/2013. The academic article that resulted from this project is in process of publication at The Design Journal (Bloomsbury). A summary of the outcomes can be found here.

Article "Digital Makers: an Ethnographic Study of the FabLab Amsterdam Users" presented in Milan

Article presented at 5th Sts Italia Conference "A Matter of Design. Making Society through Science and Technology" and published in the conference proceedings (pp.1105-1114).

Abstract

The popularization of digital fabrication tools at a domestic level and through the proliferation of maker labs or spaces is said to put the process of manufacture in the hands of the masses. This phenomenon has had ample repercussion in the media; analysts are announcing that anyone interested can make instead of buying what they need or want, indicating that the boom of participation has arrived to the realm of material objects. 

The future of digital fabrication depends, as in any emergent technology, on both technical developments and the utility found by its users. This ethnographic study of digital makers (users of the FabLab Amsterdam) explores the later, adding a feet-on-the-ground perspective to this discussion. It suggests that these tools are empowering creative people, improving the accuracy and widening the scope of their projects. On the other hand, it also points out that the emergence of an alternative model of consumption based on connected production at a domestic scale described in the media may not be aligned to the current state of affairs.

Amsterdam Urban Innovation Week

Last week Pakhuis de Zwijger hosted the Amsterdam Urban Innovation Week. I attended three sessions:

Redefining Growth
Specially interesting in this session was the talk of Kate Raworth. Raworth demands the inclusion of "the environment" (natural resources, social capital, etc.) in the analysis of our economic model, questioning the perpetual pursuit of economic growth.  Through her diagram of the "Doughnut Economy", she claims for an economic model that balances our needs and the resources available to meet them. A clear and engaging talk for "dummies" in economy, like me.

Makers Movement: 3D printing
This session showed how active is the 3D printing community in Amsterdam and the Netherlands, it involved 15 speakers on the subject! Once again, the discussion of the 3rd Industrial Revolution came up (with Peter Troxler as a first speaker). This time, the message is that the 3D printer is an icon of this change, not necessarily the technology that enables it. In the same line, practitioners highlighted that "it is just one more tool", an statement that is certainly not aligned with the repercussion this technology is having in media. Overall, it seems that the popularity of the 3D printer as a world-changing machine is starting to decline. The managers and representatives of many "maker spaces" pointed out that digital fabrication tools complement traditional technologies. The main gain of this movement, according to them, is that it empowers people; they realize that they can solve their own problems and feel happy to be "in charge".

The Circular City: Sustainist Design
A promising session that didn't quite meet my expectations. However, John Thackara's talk was worthwhile. He claimed we should "forget about cities", since they are part of a bigger system and the circular model is not really achievable. Cities depend on many bigger systems and to ignore them prevent us to take action. With a hands-on approach, Thackara finds that solving local problems through direct engagement with the community is the only effective way to understand the bigger systems; during the talk he presented several local projects in developing and developed countries that involve farming, water systems, etc. as examples of this approach.

Environmental Studies on Additive Manufacturing

Cindy Kohtala has posted a list of Environmental Studies on Additive Manufacturing in her blog at the Aalto University.

https://blogs.aalto.fi/makerculture/

Open Design / Shared Creativity Conference in Barcelona

Last week I attended the Open Design Conference in Barcelona. The event presented an interesting mix of open design practices and talks about collaborative consumption, the maker movement, and Barcelona as a digital city, most of them with a strong political component. It was very well organized and in an amazing location, it definitely worth the trip.

From all the talks, I found the opening one- Ezio Manzini's presentation of the possibility of a shift to the scenario defined by him as SLOC (Slow, Local, Open and Connected)- the deepest and at the same time understandable for the general public, with a wide point of view to analyze social transformations beyond the field of design. Moreover, some of the participants of the round table Barcelona Digital City had a surprisingly interesting approach, in particular those connected to academia showed, in my opinion, a good balance between an idealistic and realistic position (Mayo Fuster and Javier Creus). As expected, not all the presentations shared these characteristics and there were also more simplistic and "trendy"approaches of the subject.

Report of the FabLab Amsterdam survey

The results of the FabLab Amsterdam survey, collected during November 2012, are now available. 

Download the document here:


FabLab Report Final by equipodyc4

Survey raw data

Download this document here:

Appendices by equipodyc4

FabLabs overview

Fab Labs overview from La Fing

On the viability of the Open Source Development model for the design of physical objects: Lessons learned from the RepRap project (MSC Thesis).

Thorough study of the RepRap community and their mechanisms of user-innovation.

Author: Erik de Bruijn

Year: 2010

On the viability of the open source development model for the design of physical objects: Lessons learned f...

A strategist’s guide to digital fabrication

Aimed at businessmen, this magazine article introduces the process of popularization of digital fabrication, its implications for the development of new business models and corporations’ strategies.

Author: Tom Igoe and Catarina Mota

Year: 2011

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The rise of personal fabrication

This academic article describes the process of popularization of digital fabrication and its implications.

Author: Catarina Mota

Year: 2011

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The new industrial revolution

Written by technology-enthusiast and editor of Wired magazine Christian Anderson in a journalistic style. The article introduces the possibility of a third industrial revolution based on DIY trends, the rise of digital fabrication and the popularization of Internet. 

Author: Christian Anderson

Year: 2010

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