Medi-Craft
What is your vision
of textile futures?
Textiles will expand beyond their aesthetic remit to contribute to the
emotional wellbeing of the wearer. Textiles of the future will serve
novel functions without necessarily sacrificing their aesthetics.
What is your project
about?
It is an attempt to use craft to inject beauty into otherwise mundane
textile-based medical products. Plasters and bandages are prosaic objects
that help heal our wounds. But their sterile functionality does little
to heal any emotional wound. I have transformed plasters and bandages
into fashion accessories. I demonstrate that beauty can be infused in
them without hindering their functionality – suggesting it can
enhance their effectiveness. My product aids in boosting confidence
and acting as emotional therapy.
What inspires you?
Memories and objects of the past.
Why are you doing this project? What
does it mean to you?
Craft is not mere decoration. Coming from a craft background I believe
discovering new uses for traditional skills is a natural way to preserve
our arts and crafts heritage. As a child I suffered from arthritis and
often used bandages. These drew attention to my illness, soliciting
unwanted sympathy or ridicule. When I decorated these to make them look
like fashion accessories, they had an uplifting impact. My project tries
to harness the healing power of beauty, and transform what is perhaps
a painful ordeal into an opportunity to sport something beautiful.
What is ‘future’
about it?
My product attempts to harmonise physical needs with emotional ones.
If textiles can protect or decorate our bodies, why can’t they
heal as well? Healing textiles is a recent trend to fashion textiles
from natural products that are known to nourish and pamper skin. Combining
novel materials and technologies, my project takes traditional skills
to the future.
Which materials
and technologies have you used?
Fiber-seacell (Seaweed) crabylon (crab pulp), cotton, bandages,
plasters, soluble fabric, pearls, silver threads, human hair, hand embroidery,
machine embroidery, machine knitting, screen printing, beading and braiding.
Urbi Ghosh
Urbi received her Diploma in Fashion Design from the prestigious National
Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Kolkata, India. Subsequently
she worked as a Design Consultant for Indian export houses for European
markets for four years. Later, on invitation from the government of
India she undertook several design projects aimed at developing traditional
crafts. She has successfully led several projects that created products
for contemporary national and international markets using traditional
crafting skills. She also worked as a Faculty member at NIFT specialising
in surface design and ornamentation. Her work experience includes working
with independent high-end garment makers and specialist designers in
Britain. Her work has been displayed in the exhibition “Fashions’
Memory” at The Lethaby Gallery (2005).
Acknowledgements:
Many thanks to Michaela Schwarzlmüller of Seacell, Camillo Cantaluppi
of Tec Service for Crabylon.
I would also like to thank my mother for all her inspiration, Aniruddha
for adding colours in every aspect and my friends Angeli, Divya and
Carolina for all their constant support and help.
Sponsored by:
Material sponsor:Seacell
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