The Spiral Relationship between Suffering and the Production of Fashionable Clothes

In this article, I explore relationships between suffering and the production of fashionable clothes. In the commercial struggle for survival many fashionable styles are discarded while some remain durable due to their adaptability to new trends and creative ideas. The aim of the research was to investigate how suffering initiates these changes in the creative process of fashion design. This was examined through a number of methodologies, which included object-based research and ethnography. The research findings indicate that suffering within the fashion industry can be a positive attribute. It can influence the way clothes are produced and the skills necessary to produce them. A model depicting the connection between suffering and fashion is posited as a tentative theory suggesting there is a spiral relationship in that changes in fashion production and consumption resulting from suffering evolve into a spiral of further suffering impacting on the future of fashion design and manufacture. INTRODUCTION The research aims to develop a deep understanding of the concept of suffering within a fashion context and if levels of suffering in the fashion industry influence change in the design and production of garments. The enquiry was initiated through object-based research in the costume archives at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK. I wanted to explore how fashion garments had distorted the human body and survey the manufacturing techniques that had helped to reshape the physique. My aim was to compare these methods with those developed by my fashion students when developing their degree collections, in order to expand pedagogic support for their explorations into cut and construction. This led me to consider how the human body suffers, both physically and mentally when wearing fashionable clothes and how this suffering can influence changes in garment design and