Redress Design Award: Getting to Know Grand Finalist Ganit Goldstein

The Redress Design Award presents it's Grand Final tonight and I cannot wait to see the collections the designers have created this year (click here for a behind the scenes look at the finalists' fashion shoot). I had the pleasure of interviewing one of the finalists, Ganit Goldstein from Israel, whose designs and use of secondhand garments inspired me. I wish her luck this evening.

Can you share a little about your background? When did your interest in fashion begin and why?

I graduated this July from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, Israel.  My field of research is in innovation in fashion and textiles. I am inspired and driven by the idea of creating new garments by combining traditional crafts and new technology together. These paradoxical tools and mentalities break all the rules, and allow me to explore never-before-explored territories.

My love and passion for the arts, crafts and design started at a very young age. For as long as I can remember, my designs were led by curiosity.  My design process begins with me touching the material, then playing, cutting, and pinning together to see what happens. During my studies, I have established a very strong connection to materials, traditional craft techniques, and 3D design software and printing. This diverse tool box, that I picked up from a very young age, has helped me to develop my individual thinking process and designs.  At the same time,  the values I have absorbed growing up in Israel, continue to lead my way.

Knowing what we do about the impact of fashion on our environment, as a designer how will you contribute to the future of the fashion industry? 

In recent years, fashion has opened up towards different technologies and different design disciplines, such as 3D printing, combination of Industrial design software for developing new methods of textile, and incorporating the use of special materials. This provides a designer with a much more diverse tool-box: a computer mouse, parametric design and 3D designing software.  As well as pencils, fabrics, and strings etc.

Those values in this diverse tool box, alongside textile development in the field of fashion, enhances my creativity and enables me to go beyond with my imagination. This creates new ideas through feelings and experimental processes. During my studies I was interested in fash-tech and smart textile field of design. I developed unique processes for 3D scanning (collaboration with Intel RealSense technology) and 3D printing. 

What changes would you like to see?

I believe that the fashion industry will change along side the developments of cutting edge technology, especially 3D scanning that will allow designers to fit, to measure, and to tailor fashion using 3D printing based on the subject’s body scan.

There are many pros for growing the use of 3D printing. Some of the main benefits of 3D printing in fashion are the reduction of manufacturing costs, the rise in efficiency, and the minimization of pollution. I believe that creating a unique look for each person is the future of fashion and will provide the personalization of clothes. I believe that this is a ground-breaking approach in our age.

The 3D scan is a power multiplier. It gives us the ability to better exploit the technology for the benefit of custom made clothing in a quick and easy way. 3D scans allow the creator to work directly on the model, rendering the need for pattern making unnecessary. This way you can design far more interesting, special, and different garments, in a shorter time, without being bound to the traditional pattern making process.

In my final collection at Bezalel Academy I picked up many techniques for 3D body scan and 3D printing that can contribute to change of the fashion industry, bringing cutting edge technology to our lives.

What was your inspiration as you developed your collection? 

My collection is about reconstructing and rebuilding fabrics, inspired by the process of IKAT weaving. Last year, I was lucky to be selected in an exchange student program in Tokyo, Japan. There, I specialized in the technique of Ikat weaving, which is achieved by dying the strings before the weaving process.  When putting it together, the pattern appears a bit blurry (because of the movement of the strings).  My collection is about applying these traditional concepts, and weaving colored strings in a manner that is in line with my interpretations.

My collection focuses on developing new textile methods. Using shredding machines that shred the clothes to pieces, I turn it into a raw material that can be put together again in order to make new cloth from old fabrics.  I want to bring life into something that is no longer in use. I am using different pieces of textiles to provide a large variety of colors. Mixing these colors enables me to create and design new, special patterns that remind me of the IKAT technique.

 I love thrift shopping and secondhand clothing and I live to find vintage gems. Why did you decide to use secondhand garments?

All of of my clothes are bought from secondhand shops, so it has always been a part of my life to search for these unique and hidden pieces.  I know that second hand garments retain a beautiful quality and colors that I wanted to reuse in my textiles.  I believe that the world already has produced enough garments, and that we do not need to make more. It makes the search more personal to find a unique item that fits to your individual personality.

Describe your Redress Design Award experience so far...

My experience in Redress Design award so far is very exciting and I’m learning incredible new things. I feel honored have been chosen to be a part this learning opportunity. First of all – we are a very connected group, and I feel that we have a lot of similarities in the way we think, our values and our way of designing. It is very inspiring to be in such a great group and the Redress team is doing such a professional work.

We have had different challenges along our stay in HK. One of them was to design a shirt in groups of 3-4 for The R Collective. As a part of this process, we visited the TAL factory in Shenzhen, China. I have never been in such a large scale factory so for me it was outstanding experience to see how it works. 

Thanks Ganit for taking time to answer these questions when I know you've been busy. I hope to catch up with you at the end of the show.

A LIVE feed of the show can be accessed here. The show will begin at 6:30 pm Hong Kong time.