Anna Lindström, a researcher and Senior Lecturer at The Swedish School of Textiles in Borås, has become Sweden’s first doctor in redesign. She has, however, a backround in “conventional” fashion design.
Now, she specializes in the field of redesign, reuse and resource recovery from a design perspective. Anna’s aim is to inspire you to start exploring your own style and expression. Her Instagram account is full of outfits with colors and patterns that truly makes you want to buy only second hand.
When she earned her doctorate she had worked hard with her thesis for almost six years. The material scope of her thesis is outlined by the term ‘garment materials’. Conventional design material allows the designer to select color, texture, weight, print, amount of material, and such, while garment material is whatever garment is at hand, something already designed and may be in ever-shifting conditions, qualities, and quantities, regardless of whether it is constituted by surplus products or post-consumer waste.
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Related: New International Library of Fashion Research Opened at the National Museum in Oslo
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She admits she has a lot of clothes, but most of her garments are not new. People donate clothes to her since they know she’s a designer. As part of doing the artistic research and teaching, she also did a lot of industry work in Science Park Borås. Working with design students over a long period of time turned out to be fruitful in order to get hold of all types of questions, also those not related to technical ones. It became an almost philosophical journey.
Her thesis explores challenges for conventional design methods and design thinking in redesign processes and introduces a contribution to the development of the methodological foundations of redesign. The subject has previously been looked upon from other disciplines, but not in a systematic way from design. The work focuses on defining design potential in waste materials, surplus production, and product elements as well as design methodology for processing waste materials, surplus production and product elements for reuse and redesign. The theoretical foundation developed in the thesis is also in turn based on the results and findings from her earlier and ongoing teaching in higher education and innovation projects in the industry.
Some Swedish companies like Hodakova, Main Nué, and Rave Review have started to experiment with implementing redesign as a sustainable strategy.
Except colors and patterns Anna likes details such as earrings. “The details are like the spices in the salad, you want to add some roosted nuts. My closet is a mix of everything, sweet, bitter and salty!” she says.
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Related: Swedish Designers Change the Way Companies Think About Waste
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Today, it is more important than ever to address low quality, big volumes and the fast pace. The amount of leftovers existing within different companies can be reused and become a resource for another company. It is really an interesting aspect to look into. Existing products should no longer be thought of as the end point of a design process. It need to be reconsidered to be the creative starting point of a redesign process.
“If you want to buy something, make sure you love it! Sometimes we are afraid of not following trends or be like others and this fear makes us consume more than necessary. When we are unsure, we follow trends, and we forget who we are and what we like. A sustainable closet is more about finding your own style,” she stated in an interview.
When asked if factories and retailers can learn stuff from her thesis, she says, “Hopefully! In order to save resources, money, and different costs, we should also be able to, for instance, redesign in the factories to begin with, when everything is collected, before it’s scattered around the world. And that could also be a way – when you see that maybe something is going wrong, you can try to fix it there, in the factory. And also that the major companies have that dialogue with their producers.
However, the problem is that the producers don’t know what to do with a pair of jeans, but they know what to do with the roll of fabric of denim. So again, in this shift in thinking there’s still so much that needs to be done. A lot has happened, but we still need to work on terminology and methodology and also explain that this is another perspective which has effect on business and production.”
Sweden’s First Doctor in Redesign, written by Tor Kjolberg
Feature mage (on top): Rave Review is setting the bar for sustainable high-end fashion by sourcing and recycling materials to use in its designs. This process, called upcycling, is becoming increasingly more popular in the world of fashion and among consumers.