The conceptualisation phase took some more time than expected, mainly due to external factors other than the project. But now the fabrication phase has finally started, I would like to share some first experiences with you.
When the concepts became more clear during the autumn, time had come to start finding the right pieces of clothing/textile and start detailing the ideas. When selecting the items and starting to find the right colours and sizes of the designed forms, an exiting part of The Fruit Experiment started. Prototyping has been part of many of my design projects, but manually crafting the final product is relatively new to me.
Some of the fruits took a flight at this stage, as others took more time to find the right clothing and the right sizes and colours. Especially the lychee and the kiwi took the lead at this stage, as the pine apple started to stay behind. I decided this was part of the proces, and practically, I could only work on one item at once, so nothing to worry about.
As expected, coming up with ways to create the ideas around the fruits is the exiting part of this phase. I have been experimenting already with ways to apply stenciling, stamping and (silkscreen) printing. As crafting the items of The Fruit Experiment will continue, I will keep sharing pictures of the fabrication process. With this post come some pictures of a test lychee print, trying out the stencil I cut to paint the ‘triangle’ lychee on a cotton bag.
