Creative Design: Professional

Bargello Slopes

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Abstract

Sometime in the fourteenth century, a Hungarian noblewoman that was married into the Jagiello family, created a stitching style for peasants to use on their embroideries, which consumed scarcely any wool on the back of the fabric.The technique came to be called ‘Bargello’, the general term for the aesthetic resulted from a set of orderly, formal, and disciplined variations of upright long stitches. One main pattern line of stitches is first established, and then repeated sequentially throughout the fabric, using gradients of color, creating row upon row of flowing curves made of small rectangular blocks. One of the current challenges within the knitwear industry is that of creating complex multicolor patterns by minimizing yarn consumption and time to knit, and the Bargello patterns seemed to offer an opportunity to address this challenge. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to creatively manipulate a Bargello pattern into a knitted shaped garment using intarsia technique and evaluate the design process, contributing to the limited body of knowledge on Bargello knitting.The resulting cape is lightweight due to low yarn consumption. The collaborative design process led to the translation of the Bargello lines into innovative silhouettes, adding to the scholarship of both designers. 

Keywords: knitwearstretch design, intarsia, catsuit, knitwear, stretch design

How to Cite:

Gorea, A. & Roelse, K., (2024) “Bargello Slopes”, International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Conference Proceedings 80(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/itaa.17384