Knitwear design is fashion?!
Does anyone not feel excluded by fashion?
This may seem like a strange idea, but not too long ago, I was thinking about my design work and I realized for the first time that I work in the fashion industry. Obviously! Right? Well, for me this was actually a shocking realization. Like many people in the making space, I’ve always had a complicated relationship with fashion that made it hard for me to become interested in trends in apparel. I am 6’ tall and grew very quickly, so my childhood fashion memories include my mom taking me to every shoe store in the mall and us leaving without shoes after employees at each store told us that the largest size they carried was something 2-3 sizes smaller than what I needed. And don’t even get me started on my feelings about the current trend for cropped-length pants, since it sends me straight back to 7th grade and being teased for all of my pants being too short. Later in my life, I worked in neuroscience labs where I was told not to wear any clothing that I cared about because of the potential to ruin things due to spills. Together, these things meant that I felt that the fashion world wasn’t for me. It wasn’t something that I engaged with, and the goal of my wardrobe was to make sure that I was appropriately covered and warm and was not a form of self-expression.
Regardless of the reason, most of us have struggled to find off-the-rack clothing at some point in our lives. The one-size-fits-none approach to fast fashion leaves many of us feeling on the outside and like the world of contemporary trends and expression is for someone else. My experience is just one example of the myriad of ways that we can feel that we are not served or represented in the fashion world.
Where craft and fashion collide
When I got into knitting, I thought of it as a form of crafting, a way to productively put my time to use, a way to immerse myself in uplifting color, and a way to engage with like-minded community. There are so many amazing benefits to knitting that I completely missed that I was beginning to engage in a very deliberate form of fashion expression. Even as I began to create my own designs, I focused on how I was using the logical, analytical skills developed through my science background to create artistic expression and still didn’t think of it as fashion. The realization that what I was doing was a form of fashion design was eye-opening and allowed intentionality in creating pieces that give you as the knitter a place to feel belonging in the exclusion world of fashion. After feeling on the outside for most of my life, it was empowering to realize that I could create something that allowed other knitters and myself to see ourselves in the world of fashion.
Let yourself shine with your knits
I’ve seen a lot of discussion recently about knitting to fill a gap in your wardrobe, creating wearable pieces that become part of a capsule wardrobe, and creating versatile garments that work with many other pieces in your closet. I think that these are all valuable ideas, but they don’t really resonate with the way I approach my knitting or my designing. When the norm is buying the one thing you can find that fits your body, crafting gives an opportunity for creativity and self-expression in fashion that many of us just can’t find in the fast fashion world. When I spend my money to purchase the yarn that I love and my time creating a new piece for my wardrobe, I want it to do more than cover my body and keep me warm. The pieces I design give you the opportunity to be bold and expressive with your fashion. When you create your own garments and accessories, you not only gain the power to create pieces that work for your unique body, but also to wrap that amazing body in something that feels like the ultimate expression of yourself. Every time you walk out of the housing wearing a hand knit piece you should feel like an absolute badass, knowing that not only did your amazing skill create the thing you are wearing, but also that you are getting to share a piece of who you really are with the world. So go find the design that makes you feel like the most incredible version of yourself and cast it on today because all of your makes should give you that feeling!
Need to find inspiration for your next expressive knit? Check out my patterns to find the one that feels most like you!