Guest Editorial: Creative Cut

The call for papers for this second special edition ‘Creative Cut’ evolved from the success of ‘The Second International Conference for Creative Pattern Cutting’ held at the University of Huddersfield in the UK on 24TH and 25TH February 2016. The conference attracted over 130 delegates from around the world and included 36 paper presentations from leading researchers and practitioners on aspects of pattern cutting. The overriding theme of the conference was to provide a platform to develop ideas as well as continue reinforcing notions of what constitutes practice based enquiry and the value of tacit knowledge (in this case creative pattern cutting), within a research context. The cut and construction of clothing, which embellishes the human body was the overarching discourse. The conference was streamed into four definitive themes, which investigated digital technology, eco-sustainable, pedagogical and fashioned approaches to creative pattern cutting and gave researchers and practitioners a platform to share new techniques, ideas and direction with their peers in education and industry. The conference highlighted some re-occurring themes such as the use of unconventional methods to create 3D forms. This was supported from both a pedagogical perspective by Hardingham, Montogomery, and Tan et al. and by theorising practice based approaches by Lindqvist, James et al., Dove and McKinney et al.