What is Zero-Waste? How is it Implemented by Designers?

Topic: Zero-Waste Techniques

Zero-Waste fashion design means designing in a way that no material waste is generated in the making. It is a way of thinking – a philosophy that challenges the designer to use smarter techniques.

Avoiding waste can be done by increasing the efficiency in textile usage, and decreasing the amount of waste during the design process. A zero-waste approach is an efficient way to ensure this: creating designs that use the entirety of the available material (Every Little Counts).

There are many ways and techniques for designing with zero waste. Draping and knitting are the most obvious methods — using draping techniques to explore how the fabric can be worked around the body without a fixed outcome in mind. Another technique is to create a zero-waste pattern. This can be perceived as a puzzle: it involves fitting all the flat components of your clothing pattern into one piece of fabric. The flat pattern-cutting technique involves ensuring that all the pattern pieces of a garment fit together like a giant jigsaw puzzle so there is no wastage between the pattern pieces.

Knowing the width of the fabric is essential to designing in this way, as well as understanding the width of fabric required for your design. Heat sealing, laser cutting  or incorporating the selvage as part of the design are ways of reducing seaming allowances as too is reducing the amount of seaming in the design overall.

Zero waste patterns can be developed using computer aided design software, and can then be either laser cut or printed directly onto the fabric, meaning no paper is used at all. The only rule is that no waste should come out of the design.

Designer Holly McQuillan using a 3D software creating flat patterns into a jigsaw puzzle. Transforming into a 3D model.

Zero Waste Daniel, a completely zero-waste line of fashion that is 100% made from fabric scraps from other fashion designers and factories.

Inspiration Board + Sketch

My inspiration came from the videos above. Taking shapes and fitting them into a puzzle to create a design. I came up with a simple blazer and a high-wasted short. The bottom part of the blazer on each side will be a zipper seam instead of a usual seam. The closure for the shorts will be a center front long zipper. As far as making a pattern, I would do trial and error. I would draw the patterns of each piece and rearranging them to fit like a puzzle to have a zero-waste outcome.

Sustainable FashionValeria Hernandez