Gifted Unit on Origami and Sadako & the Thousand Paper Cranes Novel Study
The T/Shirt Issue
Berlin-based Mashallah Design & Linda Kostowski created items of clothing by scanning human bodies and using the data to create sewing patterns that use origami as a basis for the design, They wanted to examine and reinvent the way clothing is made. This resulted in their project called, The T/Shirt Issue.
The T/Shirt Issue
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What's the Issue?
The first issue, the T-shirt, is one of the most personal pieces of clothing, yet with their current mass market production, they offer the wearer little individuality.
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The second (and in our minds, the REAL) issue is, no matter what cosmetic alterations you apply to the T, the shirt remains the same... a four piece pattern that has remained unchanged since it's birth in the19th century.
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So we've applied 21st century technology to the classic silhouette of the T-shirt and created a garment that reflects the rise of the digital revolution!
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T-Shirt as Origami
Traditional T-Shirt Components
Reconstructed One Piece
T-Shirt Pattern
All of our work was inspired by a shape; today's T-shirt pattern was reconstructed in a 3D environment into a one-piece pattern. And what we found in this single shape, is an elegant solution to the uniformity of today's T's. By applying mathematic principles to this one-piece pattern, we can generate countless variations of free shapes - or cuts - that determine the number and path of the seams across the open field of the T.
And no matter how many times the free shape is tweaked, the one thing that never changes is the fit. Finally, we've opened up the T-shirt for customization from the core, not just its exterior. We've broke the code of the T!
The Wolf Shirt
After hearing a story about a boy being brought up by a wolf, one of the designers wanted to create a shirt with a wolf looking over his shoulder. Inscribing the poetry of technology into basic jersey, they helped him to realize his dream in the form of a t-shirt.
How Does It Work?
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People are portrayed digitally by scanning their bodies. A design is created.
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Making a clothes pattern in this way changes the look of the T-shirt because unfolding does not have an orientation - like front or back. This frees the designers imagination in a way that allows them to create amazing things!
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The output of this scan is a 3-D file, defined by the amount of polygons. The 3-D data is turned into 2-D sewing patterns by the use of the unfolding function.
Samples of T-shirt patterns created using origami.
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