Yield: Making Fashion Without Making Waste is now on display at Wellington’s The Dowse Art Museum until 26 June 2011.

Fashion designers from New Zealand and around the world have come together to create pieces that look good and leave minimal waste.

With 15% of the fabric used for clothing ending up in landfill, the zero waste approach aims to return to the pre-Industrial Revolution method of making clothing, before cloth became cheap and expendable.

Designs are made to patterns that treat fabric like puzzle pieces, in the vein of the traditional Japanese kimono, to minimise waste.

Another technique involves draping fabric rather than cutting it, then tucking, layering and sewing.

Even the exhibition platform – a collaboration between designer Chris Jackson and graphic designer Gerbrand van Melle – was created with sustainability in mind – for example, a series of stools was cut from test prints of the patterns to maximise use of waste material.

Yield is curated by New Zealand zero waste fashion designer Holly McQuillan and Timo Rissanen of New York’s Parsons The New School for Design, where the exhibition is set to appear next.

Yield
yieldexhibition.com