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How This Works

Posted on February 10 2020

Hello! Vanessa Here again with some knowledge to share.

There has been a lot of stuff happening over here at WASI headquarters aka just me...it's literally just me in my studio.

Since I started WASI, my production process and ability to expand has been limited because I have very few resources due to being a one woman team. But with time comes growth and with hard work comes reward. This year I am finally expanding to not being the sole sewer for WASI and expanding to cut and sew pieces that are going to be full size runs and not "one size fits most." This is HUGE for me, this is huge for Wasi, huge for my customers. As exciting as this news is, the process will possibly take months but I am here to share that whole process from beginning to end cause I would love for everyone to see the ins and outs of how this process works!

It's really a beautiful process that has been lost through the years. Fashion businesses aren't run how they used to. Ateliers are rare, more and more people are losing the ability and skill to sew and exploiting factory workers in the process. So in this blog post I'm going to speak about just a small percentage of the production process from a sustainable and ethical approach.

So how does this new production process work? All clothing companies do things differently and like I always have done, I will remain low production quantities and low waste while I produce these pieces. I made the first step of this process and picked out the fabric I will be using. The fabric itself is deadstock, which means it once belonged to a company that possibly produced it in the wrong color, or it's left over fabric etc. Instead of this fabric ending up in landfills, it is resold so it can be recycled and used by others like me! This is all deadstock/recycled fabric.

This isn't the only sustainable route to go, deadstock fabric is just one option. You can also produce textiles that are organic, take less to produce etc. The fashion industry is the 2nd biggest polluting industry in the world. So there are many ways to get creative and produce sustainably.

After the fabric was purchased, I got to my handy lil iPad to sketch out the designs. I had an idea already of what I wanted to do, but finalizing my 3 fabric choices really narrowed it down to the method of construction and what would work best with the fabrics. There's many more steps in between of narrowing down trims and details for your pieces but the next big part is my favorite step of the production process, creating the patterns and sewing the first sample. As a designer, you have to know textile weights, textures, what works and what doesn't with certain fabrics and the construction of a garment and what works with the body and it's curves. It is vital to know construction of pieces to know how you will produce yours, or how you will change a classic fit into a new version of that fit, or how it will sit on the body. All of these factor in when creating patterns and samples.

There's so much more to be said about the ethical and sustainable approach to this production process but that will be for another time. This is only the first step of getting started with a collection. Stay tuned for more updates on the spring collection! Coming this April!

More posts will come with the process of how WASI will be producing. WASI's way of producing is not the only way to produce your own collection, nor is it the most perfect. But we all strive to do better, to create what works for our formula!

Much Love

Vanessa of WASI

Jan 24, 20 • By vanessa

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