Fashion Freedom Initiative
fashionfreedom.eu
fashionfreedom.eu
This new organization exists to fund the development of open source tools so that designers and makers like you can create ethical and profitable high quality garments and is dedicated to reducing waste and improving labor conditions in the fashion industry. We address these challenges in a practical way by producing the (software) tools of change.
Actually, I would pay for a service which would provide such explanations for most website and webpages I browse!
That being said, I personally don't see much here outside of statements of their intentions & values. On their blog there is a broken link to a github project (now found at https://github.com/valentina-project/vpo2) to a Qt/C++ pattern-making app (GPL3) for anyone interested in that kind of work/being a part of this community.
Between the 3 blog posts, hero-image of a book you can't buy, and the founder's profile picture being a pokémon, I think it's early days and shouldn't be judged yet.
I have long wanted to do something in clothing, but I am very aware that bespoke clothing is simply out of reach, price-wise, for most people. My mother sews beautifully and trained with a tailor briefly in her teens. She sewed a lot of my clothes when I was growing up and I routinely stood for fittings. She also sewed a lot of clothes for my kids when they were little. I lived far away and took measurements periodically. In addition to knowing how to take measurements, I am handy with a seam ripper. But the kind of skill my mother has is beyond me.
So my long standing fantasy has been to do a line of mass customization clothing. My thought is this would potentially be a means to leverage technology to provide semi custom clothes at a fraction of the bespoke price.
I would love to see what this organization can do to lower the barriers between me and this daydream of mine. Because it has always seemed to be an aspiration completely out of reach for me. But I only have some vague idea of what they do thanks to one of the comments * here, not because of the information on the landing page of their site.
I have similar dreams. I have some ideas on how to simplify the design of Jacquard looms, which I see as a vehicle to get there, but these ideas are just at the exploratory stage at the moment.
If Jacquard looms are new to you, I can recommend this video introduction:
Something I think about often is how to roll out tools like this to the mass market in a positive way. I can see some downsides in democratising fashion, but handled right I think it could be an enormous source of joy.
Like real good jeans, freedom to wear real workwear at work (yep, I miss blåkläder and snickers).
Or even a good old-fashioned uniform. It doesn't need to be camo or even green. Just made for usability instead of making a statement.
Ironically the biggest "statement" we could make right now using clothes would be that.