Fragments Garments — Modular Clothing # 1

Dear reader,

I’m Elisabeth Jayot, a prospective fashion designer and academic consultant based in Paris. The Research & Design studio, I created in 2017, Fragments Garments proposes a new vision on fashion future at the crossroads of digital manufacturing and circular economy. I create innovative sustainable processes and scenarios for garment longevity and user involvement.

Empowering the User

I had never touched a sewing machine before starting my studies and my lack of knowledge became a strength allowing me to approach fashion with a fresh eye, the eye of the user instead of that of the stylist. Finding pattern making and sewing too technical and time-consuming, I tried to figure out ways to facilitate garment making so that everyone could produce clothes in an easy and speedy way.

A Challenging Paradox

The essence of fashion is change and we love it as it allows us to reinvent ourselves. However, constantly moving trends have induced the environmental disaster which makes our industry one of the most polluting in the world. Where fashion trends lead to product replacement, durability implies an extended life span. Hence, fashion and sustainability live in two very different time-spaces. Consequently, I am facing a challenge :

How can I reconcile the urge for a sustainable production and consumption with the pleasure of fashion renewal ?

Make a Change?

Transform your Clothes!

So many objects have been conceived with dismountable and replaceable spare parts, so why not clothing? Drawing my inspiration from technical challenges and societal changes, I have opted for approaching fashion with the point of view of an object designer, in order to imagine seamless, modular and playful designs, which you can transform on your own, in a quick and easy way.

I conceive a garment as an ‘open object’ — as described by French philosopher Gilbert Simondon — with reusable spare parts, just like your car! Thanks to ingenious Plug&Play seamless interlocking attachment systems, you may manually assemble, dismantle and transform your garment, with no skills or machine, according to season, trend, size, or other needs for change.

Worldwide Designs produced Locally & On-demand

I imagine a circular fashion supply chain aiming at inverting the current fast fashion paradigm. To fight the environmental damages created by cheap clothing produced at a fast pace in low-wage countries, I propose to relocate within small urban manufacturing units akin to Fablabs, the production of clothes, – moreover designed seamless and modular -, based on a worldwide digital pattern trade. My idea is to gather in one place a locally-sourced sustainable fabric library, a co-creation customer service, an on-demand laser-cutting of customized spare parts to be manually assembled by the user, and a shop offering ready-to-wear second-hand clothes made of recombined used spare parts locally collected. This project adds a 4th dimension to the classic Reduce, Repair, Recycle concept by involving the consumer.

Cooperation is Key

My practice relies on a combination of three pillars which involve series of collaborations with experts representing different fields, and together :

• ACADEMIC RESEARCH: We pay tribute to the past and to our peers in order to contribute to the future. We source, we analyze, we link, we conceptualize, we share.
• DIGITAL CRAFTSMANSHIP: We challenge techniques in order to merge costume history with new technologies. We try, we fail, we learn, we hack, we try again, and again, we master, we teach.
• FASHION DESIGN: We transform concepts into a mix of forms, colors, and materials which we turn into a product. We draw, we model, we test, we adapt, we detail,
• And it is your turn to play with it!

Discover the beginning of my Re-Fream co-creation project in the next post.

Biography

After graduating from an MA in Fashion Design at the National Superior School of Decorative Arts (ENSAD) in Paris in 2014, I had different professional experiences as a stylist, pattern maker, movie costume designer, and fashion editorialist. In 2016, I decided to focus my work on prospective and innovation by joining the research group “Soft Matters” in my former school (ENSADLab). Then I entered the first french doctoral curriculum dedicated to “Fashion Practice & Theory”. In 2019, the Sorbonne University (Paris 1 Sorbonne-Panthéon) funded my PhD researches in aesthetics and cultural studies, directed by Christophe Genin and done in cooperation with the French Fashion Institute (IFM). The work I developed through the R&D studio Fragments Garments has been exhibited among others at the Centre Pompidou Museum, European Industry Days, Milano Salone del Mobile, Dutch Design Week, Paris Design Week, Designer’s Days… After winning the WORTH Partnership EU grant and the TCBL Call for start-up in 2018, it’s now time to join the exciting Re-Fream team.