The Future’s Bright The Future’s Orange Digital
Heritage craft and digital technology aren’t always topics that you would think work together, yet, when you look closely at the origins of digital, you find that it could not have existed without the defining legacy that heritage craft has had specifically on our fashion industry. From innovations of the power loom during the first industrial revolution, the development of new ideas and processes has catapulted industries like fashion into the mega fast industry it is today.
Industry 4.0 is the introduction or better yet the affirmation of digital technology influencing industries beyond fashion and opening doors for greater innovation and future prospects in design.
The great thing about the digital revolution is that it has many angles. From a fashion perspective that can be anything from 3D printing to e-commerce, but for us at Korlekie, it is the new possibilities for textiles, garment longevity, creativity and sustainability.
Fabrication
Fabrication in knit and weaving technology is where it really all begins for Korlekie. Taking a singular thread, multiplying and manipulating it several times with weave techniques to create a new type of fabric is quite satisfying and with digital technology feeding us new and improved methodologies from around the world, the opportunities for innovation are endless.
A technique quite close to Korlekie is lace. Earlier on, we found developing lace formations by hand to be an arduous task and the type of outcomes we wanted were only managed by skilled craftsmen/women at a very costly price. With digital technology, the opportunity to create complex variations similar to hand made designs are a possibility and thus our fabrication journey begins.
With this in mind, comes the starting point for which Korlekie builds its foundation, research and developments on, delving deeper into the wonderful world of lace and knitwear, making use of both heritage and digital craft.
Heritage and Digital Craft
The beginning developments of UV mapping has been a great way to re-imagine textile configurations that otherwise will be difficult to comprehend by just generating an idea with the mind. UV mapping is the 3D modelling process of projecting a 2D image to a 3D model’s surface for texture mapping.
Below are some of our working developments.
The physical product is not as striking as the digital illustration on the left 
The final outcome was an interesting mix of both hand and digital coming together as one and the realisation that heritage craft, for us, will co-exist with the digital. Watch this space.
