Marcela Abal, 27 & Maria Ines Paysse, 29. Centro de Diseño Industrial (EUCD), Uruguay. Thesis Project 2010.
-specialism: Knitwear
Design Background:
We both studied Fashion & Textile Design at Centro de Diseño Industrial (EUCD) from Uruguay, where we now teach Kniwear Design.
Maria Ines has been seriously involved with knitting since 2003. Knitwear Design is her passion and she has been researching, blogging and teaching about it for a while. She has been working since 2003 at Manos del Uruguay -a handknitting company known for its social aim- where she develops designs for the local market and important brands all over the world.
Marcela is a photographer that has been working since 2002 and a freelance faashon designer
Project title: Cocún
Cocún is our own version of Cocoon. We invented this word to make this concept fit our idiosyncrasy, to keep it local.
Cocún means protection, intimacy, being home. It means wrapping and taking refuge in the warmth of our own interior. To look inside and then around. To acknowledge the environment and make it our own.
Inspiration:
Nowadays, knitting is being reconsidered and understood from very different perspectives. We wanted to make our point and express our own vision of knitwear, giving it a local and authentic approach.
We decided to search inspiration from our interior, our roots and our environment. So we created an image that reflects our personalities and our vision of ourselves. We invented a world to give form to our ideas and to take concepts and ideas to design. With this conceptual collection, we especially wanted to manifest the creative possibilities of knitwear design.
According to the image, we worked with memory, sensitivity and emotions. The dreamlike atmosphere suggested garments to watch, to provoke feelings, to love.
The silhouettes in this collection wrap, embrace and protect the body, even restricting movement in some cases.
Strengths:
Marcela is very creative and has great photography and illustration skills. Maria Ines has a lot of experience with knitting and is good at researching and keeping focus to reach goals. We worked really well as a team and were able to accomplish a detailed work.
Design process:
We started doing a lot of research about knitting and wool. We wanted to demonstrate the most important characteristic of knitting, the property of creating any volume or tridimensional shape without the need of seams. We focused the design process on experimental handknitting techniques, and took them as a starting point to design. Then the swatches and shapes we created interacted with the body of a Barbie doll, to generate new constructive ideas.
Techniques:
These garments were deliberately designed and developed by handknitting techniques, most of them can´t even be produced on a knitting machine.
Al resources we used are traditional techniques -as cables and partial knitting-, commonly used by a regular hand-knitter for producing basic garments. By changing scale and applying different uses to these techniques, we reached unusual results.
Project Length
6 months
What made us pursue knitwear:
Uruguay is one of the world´s leading wool producers and has an important handknitting tradition. We wanted to show and prove Uruguay´s possibilities regarding knitwear design, we think it is important to build our own identity as a country specialized in artisanal knitting.
Contact
ma.abal@gmail.com
from spot on textiles
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