Integrated System for Fashion Design using Computerised Wholegarment Knitwear Production

Abstract

This paper reports doctoral research undertaken at Curtin University of Technology by Ms Yang into the possibilities of integrating the systems of high fashion knitwear design and the programming and operation of computerized wholegarment® knitwear machines to the point of 1st sample prototype. To date, these have been three separate and incommensurate systems. This has resulted in many problems, inefficiencies and loss of creative and competitive advantage. Cost s and time to market are high; technicians compromise garment design to make garments easier to program and faster and cheaper to produce; knitwear designers do not understand the creative potential and limitations of the computerized wholegarment® knitting; prototyping new designs is slow and prone to failure; changes to garments are unnecessarily complex and expensive. There are significant cultural, professional , and gender differences between knitwear designers, almost exclusively female and educated in Schools of Art and Design; knitwear technicians, almost exclusively male and educated as engineers; and knitting machine operators, usually female and with limited training. Currently, it is assumed that garments are designed by the knitwear de signer, and then the wholegarment® knitting machine is programmed by a knitting technician for production. In reality, getting a garment prototype ready for production requires that there are high levels of collaboration between the three systems. This research has investigated the potential to integrate the three roles into a single unified high fashion wholegarment® knitwear design and prototyping system in which a fashion designer operates the wholegarment® machine directly and undertakes much of the programming role previously undertaken by technicians. The investigation has been undertaken across 8 semi-commercial high fashion knitwear design projects