Technology Goes to School Thanks to Industry Partnerships
The co-mingling of private industry and education is helping the development of new technology and other solutions for the apparel and textile industries.
Matching the experience of professionals with knowledge-hungry fashion students is a formula that educators think can strengthen the next generation of designers, patternmakers, merchandisers and other professionals.
Two local colleges are taking the lead in publicprivate partnerships, and their decision appears to be paying off.
The Otis College of Art & Design, whose fashion design school is based in the California Market Center in Los Angeles, and the California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, Calif., have augmented their curricula with guidance from working professionals.
Otis has a long-established mentor program that brings some of the country’s best-known designers into the classroom. While much of the focus has been on fashion, the college has expanded the program to tackle a new animal: technology.
Earlier this year, scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles helped Otis students learn about nanotechnology, technology that works at the molecular level, and develop clothing featuring shapes inspired by the forms of newly discovered molecules. At a fashion presentation, these molecular shapes were projected onto student designs, accompanied by the sounds of cells dividing. Students also worked alongside Nike Inc. to incorporate stretch into metal-plated fabric—a first in garment construction.
This semester, Otis students will learn the latest in fusing and fabric technology to construct stitchless garments under the guidance of Robert Tuggle, an Otis alum who is now the design director for The North Face’s Tekware division. Tekware is the company’s high-performance sportswear utilizing advanced materials and state-of-the-art construction. Climbers and backpackers—from Mount Everest in Nepal to Patagonia in the southern tip of Argentina— have worn the garments.
Tuggle will help 15 students from the junior class develop a collection, which will be included in the student fashion show next January.
To visualize the line’s concept, “outerwear collection of the future,” students are imagining a world that has been covered in ice by a giant storm, agrave; la the recent film “The Day After Tomorrow.” The only survivors are wearing North Face expedition apparel. It’s a little bit “Mad Max meets North Face,” Tuggle said. “The idea is to try to get them to think about stitchless clothing, to get rid of the bulk normally congregated at the seams, so it doesn’t cause irritation during hiking,” he explained.
The students will learn about bonding with heat glues. There will be lots of laser cutting and draping, and participants will use microfiber, moisture-wicking and lightweight fabrics. Tuggle will spend about five days on campus for the project, giving students direction when they need it.
“You have to think about how garments are constructed,” Tuggle said. “You learn about the ergonomics of how the body moves and know what fabrics will work best for that movement.”
Because of this endeavor and the nanotechnology project, Otis is becoming somewhat of a pioneer in the melding of form and function, said Rosemary Brantley, founding chair of the Otis School of Fashion Design.
“We now aspire to bring the future into our classrooms and merge creativity and technology,” Brantley said. “Our new goal is that the School of Fashion Design be a think tank, laboratory and testing ground for new ideas, methods, materials, equipment and emerging technology.”
Cal Poly’s cotton project
Cal Poly has also partnered with experts in the fashion industry. Last year, the school’s Apparel Merchandising and Management Department launched a work program with Los Angeles manufacturer American Apparel Inc. Students— who worked side-by-side with industry pros at the American Apparel factory in downtown Los Angeles—produced their own clothing line, which they sold at the campus bookstore and other sites.
Recently, Cal Poly Associate Professor Cindy Regan enlisted the support of Kronfli Spundale Mills Inc., American Apparel, KCL Knitting, CalCot, Expo Dyeing and Finishing and Ramtex Mills to develop a strategy to grow California’s cotton industry. With the help of Sam Lim, senior partner at American Apparel, Regan received a grant from the California State University Agriculture Research Initiative.
Regan learned that apparel products consumed 64 percent of the 7.2 billion pounds of last year’s domestic cotton crop and that California produces 22 percent of domestic upland cotton. The problem, she found, was that local farmers are almost entirely dependent on exports— 85 percent of their crops go overseas, mainly to China. Yet garments created in China have a “Made in China” label, despite their composition of California cotton.
Regan compared California cotton with the competition, measuring upland cotton from California’s San Joaquin Valley against cotton from Memphis, Tenn., and Mali in French West Africa.
To get the facts, she relied on her industry contacts. She went to Kronfli’s temperature- and humidity-controlled textile laboratory to test the material for colorfastness, pilling, stretch, shrinkage, torque and weight. American Apparel and its subsidiary, KCL, sewed the cotton yarns into greige jersey fabrics. The fabrics were then dyed white, orange and navy at Expo Dyeing in Anaheim, Calif. Expo’s quality-control specialists tested the material for weight, twisting and shrinkage. T-shirts were then made at American Apparel. The final products were taken to the SPESA/Material World Expo last May in Miami, where Regan got feedback from suppliers.
The results showed that all three cottons were similar in durability and colorfastness. California cotton had better shape retention and stretch, less shrinkage and fewer twisting characteristics. But the Mali cotton was favored for its aesthetic appeal, rating high in dye absorption.
Regan plans to use the information to give Cal Poly students insight into textiles marketing, apparel manufacturing and supply-chain management. She will recommend curriculum changes for advanced textile classes to incorporate some of the textile quality-control tests she encountered during her research.
“I learned which textile tests were most important at the greige and finished-fabric stages,” Regan said. “I am also going to stress communication and time management more. I was astounded at the frequency of telephone calls that apparel/textiles associates make and receive during their workday. To succeed with the quick response demanded of our local industry, students need to master communication and time management skills.”
