The fashion industry is one of the largest economic factors on Earth requiring notable resources. Currently, the traditional pattern and cutting practices for adult pants, outerwear, jackets, blouses, and underwear waste 10 to 20 % of the total fabric. As a result, apparel production produces over 60 billion square meters of scarp fabrics alone annually. To save cost, and achieve a more sustainable, environmentally-friendlier production, recent research turned to Zero Waste Pattern Cutting aka ZWPC. Scientists found various ways for ZWPC to use up to 98% of the fabric including the development of multiple sizes of garments, digital pattern cutting, and marker-making techniques. Their findings suggest that implementing some of the ZWPC can reduce wastage even in fashion mass production. However, the application of ZWPC requires a novel apparel design process, because it limits the variety of fashion styles. Read to be in the know.
Did you know that the current 15% waste of fabric from cutting corresponds to 2316.613 square miles – almost the size of Delaware (2489 square miles)?
What Is Zero Waste Design or Zero Waste Pattern Making?
These terms refer to designing clothing patterns with a minimum or zero fabric waste. The approaches require creative solutions for eliminating curves and careful pattern layouts for the markers. As such, the ZWPC designing process integrates sketching, material knowledge, modern computer technology, and pattern making under the consideration of technical and visual elements of clothes creation.
Obviously, different zero-waste methods exist, for instance,
- Jigsaw,
- Tessellation,
- Multiple clothes approach,
- Minimal cut design,
- Wrap-and-drape,
- Geo forms,
- Reuse of scarp waste and yarns,
- Knitting or crocheting.
Let’s dive in what ZWPC means for you the customer, the designers, our economy, and Earth. First,
Is Zero Waste Design/Pattern Making New?
No. In ancient times, the riding pants consisted of two rectangular and one square piece woven in these forms. These pieces serve as legs and crutch, respectively. Other garments with historic roots based on geo shapes are the poncho, and traditional kimono.
Many of us remember the crochet bikinis of the 1970s, the currently trending crochet swimwear coverups and/or have knitted sweaters, jackets and alike. Knitting and crocheting hardly produce wastage.
The perennially trends of quilted and/or patchwork attire apply the ZWPC approach by the reuse of scarp fabric.
The sewing of a full-skirt, or tired skirt apply a minimal cut design with almost no waste.
How Does the Zero Waste Pattern Making Approach Work?
All ZWPC techniques apply one-piece manipulation, segmentation, reconstruction, and fabric elasticity application to the basic silhouette of contemporary garments. Therefore, they all require designers to manipulate the excess fabric on garments with fitting devices, and embellishments based on the human body shape. Consequently, designers have to create three-dimensional forms instead of two-dimensional flat patterns. Due to the elimination of waste in the cutting process, the attire becomes more fitted and figure flattering.
Tessellation
In the tessellation technique, designers use shapes like rectangles, triangle, even jigsaw puzzle shapes. Just like you can create a soccer ball from pentagons and hexagons, tessellation permits putting pieces of fabrics together to follow the body shape. Because these shapes fit together easily tessellation allows to achieve zero waste.
Jigsaw and Multiple Clothes Approach
The embedded jigsaw technique produces cut patterns for multiple garments or multiple sizes within one marker. On the contrary, the multiple clothes technique combines multiple styles within one layout. Both approaches aim to arrange the pieces of the pattern for minimal wastage.
Transformational Reconstruction
Transformational reconstruction (TR) refers to a new draping pattern-making technique. This technique creates the design in 3D. Next, the designer transfers the pattern onto 2D fabric while optimizing the fabric use. Because TR relies on interlocking of cut pieces, it limits adjustments like decrease or increase of pattern pieces. Any change of one piece namely impacts at least another piece of the cut. Consequently, creating the markers for the whole size range from XS to XXXL means repeating the labor-intensive process of the draping pattern-making technique for each size.
Furthermore, sewing the pieces together requires highly skilled seamstresses, and needs more time. While TR reduces waste, collections become notably more expensive. Another disadvantage for you-the consumer-is that alterations for fit become very difficult, or even impossible.
It’s it fits or it doesn’t fit.
Due to these challenges more research is needed before TR becomes ready for fashion mass production.
Conclusions on Zero Waste Pattern Cutting
On the large scale of fashion production, small changes like more efficient use of fabric can have large impacts. Despite many manufactures in the textile industry recycle their waste to reduce their ecological footprint, not all can cost-efficiently do so. However, these companies could implement ZWPC to more efficiently use the Earth’s resources, and reduce both production costs and waste.
References
Beck, U., Wagner, M., Li, X., Durkin-Meisterernst, D., and Tarasov, P.E., 2014. The invention of trousers and its likely affiliation with horseback riding and mobility: A case study of late 2nd millennium BC finds from Turfan in eastern Central Asia. Quaternary International, 348, 224-235. doi: 10.1016/j.quaint.2014.04.056
Pingki, M.J, Hasnine, S., and Rahman, I., 2017. An experiment to create Zero Wastage Clothing
by stitching and slashing technique. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, 8(1), pp. 8.
Ramkalaon, S., and Sayem, A. S. M., 2021. Zero-Waste Pattern Cutting (ZWPC) to tackle over sixty billion square metres of fabric wastage during mass production of apparel. The Journal of The Textile Institute, 112(5), 809–819. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405000.2020.1779636.
Saeidi, E., 2015. Precious Cut: A Practice-Based Research Toward Zero-Waste Design by Exploring Creative Pattern Cutting Methods and Draping Techniques. MS thesis in the Department of General Human Environmental Science, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.
Featured photo of Sijia Kang in a Jason Wu design by Sharp Shotter. Source: depositphotos.com.
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