Thread by @CZEdwards

Ruffles are not Melanoma’s fault. They’re what happens when fabric and assembly labor gets too cheap, and designers are allowed to exploit it.

Florals come around when fabric print tech has an incremental improvement.

A relatively short thread.

https://twitter.com/CZEdwards/status/1039314187825033216

#TailorSnarkWars
Battle of Opportunity
Floof, folderol, furbelows, ruffles and the horrors that are trends of technology.

Florals first: Printing a floral fabric takes good printing tech. When chintz first hit the scene in the 1720s, it was block printed in 2-3 colors, thusly.

That’s from the Victoria & Albert, 1730s. I think it’s configured for maternity wear, which just goes to show that we’ve always made pregnant people suffer.

That is a chintz, and for about a generation, people wore a lot of those patterns. Because they were hot, new tech.

Printing that is like scrapbooking, sort of. Think rubber stamps: carve 2-3 stamps around 10-25 inches square, lay out the fabric, hit it with the stamps in 2-3 different dyes. Pay attention & keep everything square.

Labor intensive, but MUCH cheaper than embroidery!

Then someone figured out roller stamps & consecutive rollers. This tech got better by iterations, and with each iteration & each new set of dyes, florals made a comeback because they’re technically more difficult than geometrics. Floral fabric is manufacturers showing off.

The current iteration is because we just went through damasks (which are generally a direct precursor to florals, as abstract, simpler florals) and dye sublimation printing (like inkjet printer, but 45-60” wide, roll fed, with heat) has gotten REALLY good recently.

That’s a damask I like, but note how there are some parts that aren’t as brightly white? On old skool block print damask, those fades would be because the block/roller was imperfectly inked, and thus that would be reject quality.

Not this time, though. That’s intentional...

To show off how precise the printers have gotten. Just like in animation, showing consistent grunge in fabric print is harder than getting something perfectly aligned every time.

So that’s why we’ve got florals right now. Also in part because we’ve got a reactionary backlash going, and florals have a long association with the feminine; I do point out that Betsey Johnson & Dolce & Gabbana both have a several YEAR history of florals (& feminist leanings.)

Ruffles, OTOH, are a horror of evil labor exploitation & bad design.

2 ways to make a ruffle, and both are in use. One is cut a lot of long narrow strips of fabric (either on grain or cross grain, doesn’t matter), run one long edge through a machine called a ruffler, sew. OR...

Cut circles of fabric into spirals, run the inner edge through the ruffler, sew.

This just got a LOT cheaper thanks to laser cutting CNC machines. Since fabric is at an all-time low right now, especially synthetics (which are easiest to laser cut...)

Clothes are technology.

And ruffles hide a multitude of construction sins. Uneven seams? Put a ruffle on it. Garment off grain? Nobody not wearing it will notice with ruffles. (It’ll be uncomfortable, tho.) Want drape, but don’t wanna pay for better fabric? Build a solid base, throw on droopy ruffles.

There’s also some conventional fashion cruelty going on: for generations, women with athletic or round bodies have been told not to wear ruffles because they make one look bigger. (Meh.) Which is a sin, per fashion wisdom. Women should almost vanish, right? (Grrrrrrr.)

When high fashion encourages ruffles, it’s high fashion flipping off women who don’t conform to whatever high fashion is pushing as an ideal body type.

The women who adopt it? Often doing so not because they especially like ruffles, but because they’ve absorbed that thought.

The shoulder ruffle trend? Personally? I think that’s a practical joke, but the thing is, people like Melanoma can be encouraged to buy anything, or can be gifted anything, and they’ll wear it.

Because they don’t know better, because they don’t consider how clothing is made.

The labor exploitation is the result of labor being cheap. If you’re paying the people who make your garments $1 a garment, you don’t care how difficult that garment is to make.

If you can get away with it, you will. If they won’t tell you to go soak your head, you’ll push.

When labor has more power in the garment trade, the lines get simpler & cleaner, garments have better construction, and garments cost more, but they last longer, and trends are slower to shift.

When labor is less powerful, none of that is true. And ruffles show up. To hide sins.

Take-away? Don’t buy the trends if you can help it. Focus on the classic pieces whenever possible. Try to skip fast fashion* (F21, Zara, Deb, Target/Walmart/TJMaxx/Kohls) when possible in favor of either the resale market or a better quality piece.

*Does not apply to kids.