Making as using: Design research that deciphers value

Abstract

The cultivation of sustainable fashion praxis is challenging when design activity is implemented through the making of objects. Whilst scrutinising the use value of objects yields solutions, framing making as design research positions this process as research enquiry, with inherent usefulness in its own right. Sited within an emergent fashion practice that integrates professional skills with everyday and domestic customs, transformation is explored, via the method of gleaning, to reframe waste as remnants. This affords comprehension of the embedded life within objects and materials as they move into and out of my hands, post and prior to making. I propose that making is useful as a method for discovery; to nurture deep thinking regarding the use of made objects, to conceive of divergent systems for fashion creation and dissemination, and to critique the originating design practice.