Disrupting the Fashion Archive: The Serendipity of Manufacturing Mistakes

Literature has documented how designers use fashion archives as explorative inspiration for designing and cutting fashion collections. (Clarke and De La Haye 2014; Rhys 2011; Riegels Melchior and Svensson 2014; Murphy 2011). This derivative research can inform choices of fabric, silhouette, shape and the skills and technologies employed in the execution of the collection. This paper describes a case study that asked design students to identify mistakes in manufacture, in selected garments from the Yorkshire Fashion Archive held at University of Leeds. It explores the potential for accidental or intentional mistakes to be a source of inspiration for fashion design. There is a lack of literature that describes how fashion designers have been inspired by manufacturing mistakes in archive garments, which the research seeks to redress. A broader literature review emphasised how definitions of human mistakes have stimulated ideas and resulted in innovation in different disciplines and contexts and these ideas are transposed into a fashion context within this study. Some of the manufacturing mistakes identified in the archive garments included: sleeves sewn in the wrong way, incorrect stitch tension, using patterns that were unsuitable for a design, cutting fabric without making sure pattern pieces were straight, using the wrong interfacing or no interfacing at all, etc. These findings informed the design and eventual manufacture of a collection of contemporary garments. The documentation of this process provides an important reference point for garment creators to disrupt conventional approaches to fashion design and technology and supports the development of innovative skills. These can be utilised to create new and novel clothing designs with which to enrich the global fashion industry.