Designing a Knit Methodology for Technical Textiles

Abstract

This project assumes a perspective developed from practice in textile making and design. To a textile practitioner, it becomes clear that in the field of technical textiles, often a radically different approach is used from that used in the traditional apparel industry. The knitted apparel industry has joint emphases on aesthetics and functionality, in both fabric and garment development stages (Eckert, Intelligent support for knitwear design, PhD thesis, 1997). In technical textiles, the emphasis often comes from an engineering point of view and is primarily concerned with function (Stead, The emotional wardrobe: a fashion perspective on the integration of technology and clothing, PhD thesis, 2005). These different design perspectives are capable of enormously different results, or can be unintentionally close to each other’s disciplines. In weft-knitted textiles, the methods and several of the considerations used to make fabrics do not differ, whether the desired outcome is function-focused or aesthetically focused. In reality, it is always both of these things. The decisions faced in development of a garment are invaluable to any developmental textile work. They inform on shape, fit, quality and durability at every stage of the production process (Aldrich, Fabric, form and flat pattern cutting, 2nd ed, Blackwell, 2007). These considerations make differences in producing well-integrated technologies into textile forms and the difference between technology and/or functionality existing within a product rather than sitting on top as a separate entity. This paper talks of the early stages of a research project which attempts to delineate the approaches adopted when designing a technical textile, in order to take more account of tacit and intuitive knowledge which comes from textile as a design discipline. Already showing interesting results about discipline and methodology, the case study uses auxetic materials [those which expand in a transverse direction to that of the stretch (Lakes, Science 235:1038–1040, 1987)] as a case study. Design considerations utilise joint emphases on form and function-led methodology.