Creative Design: Graduate

Altered

---

Abstract

Production and disposal of formal wear in the wedding industry, namely bridal attire, contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and the roughly 10 million tons of textile waste that ends up in landfills per year (EPA, 2016). The purpose of Altered was to a) investigate hemming waste created during bridal alterations and b) explore methods of repurposing these materials with the intent of lessening the amount of waste produced by the bridal industry. Altered was created using 120 bridal hems and six special occasion dress hems that I collected while working in an alterations department. The overall design of the dress was inspired by topographic images of a hurricane moving over ocean water. This design contributes to existing work surrounding the use of textile waste and provides a new and innovative approach to utilizing a form of waste that has not been previously explored.

Keywords: Garment Reuse, Textile Waste

How to Cite:

Romans, M., (2019) “Altered”, International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Conference Proceedings 76(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/itaa.8873