CAD systems and the division of labour in knitwear design

2023

Knitwear is a consolidated industry in Italy and, at the same time, a typical expression of the Made in Italy paradigm linked to the ideas of craftsmanship. While, on the one hand, knitwear is associated with the idea of craft and manufacturing traditions, on the other hand, it is nowadays produced by numerical control machines (CNC) where the technological contribution and the level of automation are very relevant. The convergence of physical and digital environments, at the heart of the Fashion Industry 4.0 debate, is an established feature of knitwear design practice. In the contemporary industrial scenario, knitted items are produced on digitally programmed machines through sophisticated software, and the manual contribution of the individual operator during the knitting phase is reduced to a minimum. In the light of these premises, this contribution questions the opportunity and value of the integration of digital technologies in the storytelling of traditional manufacturing without losing the power to evoke Made in Italy's values such as quality, aesthetic refinement, and exclusivity. To analyze these issues, the authors report the case study of SMT-Società Manifattura Tessile, a leading knitting company where the technological presence equals that of traditional manufacturing craftmanship, keeping both elements at balance. The case study suggests the importance of the contemporary knitting craftsman to increasingly develop communication skills to make the relationship between technology and manufacturing explicit and possibly smoothly blend it with the Made in Italy archetypes.

The International Journal of Design Education, 2018

If the concept of good design is necessary for traditional fashion design as clothes making, knitwear is now facing a decisive change from hobby to project. Craftsmanship in Italy is a key ingredient for businesses success when it is able to project itself into a new economic and cultural dimension. In this way, we can talk about knitwear design as a specific field of "Made in Italy" that is completely changing: to become a project, knitwear must produce garments enhancing traditional techniques while expressing the spirit of time. Today knitwear design teaching is an evolving and largely unexplored field; it concerns a complex process, combining ancient techniques of traditional knowledge with experimentation and technological innovation. Today, the ability to explore contexts in an original way allows for the proposal of ideas and results that are not only technical solutions of established problems, but also creatively solve problems, invent new ones, or look at old problems in a different way. This paper outlines the challenges designers are facing while passing knowledge on to other young designers still in the Academy. They not only teach a manual technique, but also a method that involves multiple aspects that clearly affect the production chain.

Design Studies, 2000

Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 2001

Communication between different members of a design team often poses difficulties. This paper reports on the results of a detailed empirical study of communication in over twenty British, German and Italian knitwear companies. The knitwear design process is shared by the designers, who plan the visual and tactile appearance of the garments, and the technicians, who have to realise the garment on a knitting machine. They comprise a typical but small design team whose members have different backgrounds and expertise. Knitwear design allows a detailed analysis of the causes and effects of communication breakdown. Designers specify their designs inaccurately, incompletely and inconsistently; technicians interpret these specifications according to their previous experience of similar designs, and produce garments very different from the designers' original intentions. Knitwear is inherently difficult to describe, as no simple and complete notation exists; and the relationship between visual appearance and structure and technical properties of knitted fabric is subtle and complex. Designers and technicians have different cognitive approaches and are very different people. At the same time the interaction between designers and technicians is badly managed in many companies. This paper argues that improving the accuracy and reliability of designers' specifications would significantly enhance the design process. It concludes with a description of the architecture of an intelligent automatic design system that generates technically correct designs from the designers' customary notations.

2006

Designers immerse themselves in environments rich in inspiration. Previous research has tended to neglect the vital role of sources of inspiration in triggering and guiding designers' activities. This paper reports research which investigates the gathering of inspiration sources and exploration of ideas and hence attempts to understand how inspiration is harnessed.

The Design Journal

If for traditional fashion design as clothes making or as basics for the creation of fashion products the concept of good design is now acquired, knitwear is now facing its decisive change from hobby into project; the enhancement of craft (Micelli S. 2011) does not refer to any nostalgia for the past times, and even better in Italy it is a very fertile area to be innovated and experimented. The ability to innovate and promote new points of view in design processes does not arise only from a thorough understanding of specific areas, but also from a lifestyle open to diversity, that society has to accept and recognize (Micelli S. 2011). Today, the ability of designers to explore contexts in an original way, proposing ideas and results that are not just technical solutions of established problems, sees in creativity and in fashion design education the ability to solve problems through materials and their constant innovation for clothes, to experiment or to look at old problems in a different way with the aim of going beyond the usual "fashion" idea. This paper is written at the end of an educational experience in the Knit Design Lab at the School of Design of Politecnico di Milano, where Missoni, the most important Italian knitwear brand, together with Woolmark, the most influencing certification body at an international level for the promotion and enhancement of Merino wool, in collaboration with Knitlab, a digital platform for the learning of the traditional knitting techniques active in the School of Design at Politecnico di Milano, realized a project in which the knitting techniques have been the first tool for the creation, design and prototyping of a clothes collection for the spring-summer 2017, coherent with the brand identity of Missoni and with at least the 70% of merino wool as a condition dictated by Woolmark. The aim of the paper is to highlight the moments of convergence and differentiation regarding the methodologies and the design process into the different areas of design. In this way today we can talk about knitwear design: a specific field of Made in Italy completely changing: to become project, knitwear must produce garments and collections enhancing traditional techniques while expressing the spirit of time and S2760 LAURA AFFINITO, GIOVANNI MARIA CONTI, MARTINA MOTTA in which the manual technique becomes a research tool and method to deal with all the aspects in their influence on the industrial production chain.

The Design Journal, 1999

As commercial knitwear designers gain experience, many appear to lose their creativity. They often find they have gone stale, and need to change jobs to find fresh challenges. But although designer burnout is a significant phenomenon, experienced designers gain both a broader understanding of their design context and thus a more sophisticated understanding of design problems, and develop expertise in creating the designs their companies require quickly and efficiently. However they may find it harder to create innovative designs. Partly as a result of widespread fallacious beliefs about creativity being antithetical to rational problem solving, experienced designers are not encouraged to develop sufficiently flexible skills, and the skills they do develop are undervalued. This paper relates the demands that knitwear designers face to the cognitive psychology of learning and expertise, to examine what designers learn from experience, and how the demands that govern their designing behaviour can be altered to enable them to develop their ability to innovate as well as design efficiently.

Work:6 Parsons AAS Interior Design, 2013

If for traditional fashion design as clothes making or as basics for the creation of fashion products the concept of good design is now acquired, knitwear is now facing its decisive change from hobby into project; the enhancement of craft (Micelli S. 2011) does not refer to any nostalgia for the past times, and even better in Italy it is a very fertile area to be innovated and experimented. The ability to innovate and promote new points of view in design processes does not arise only from a thorough understanding of specific areas, but also from a lifestyle open to diversity, that society has to accept and recognize (Micelli S . 2011). Today, the ability of designers to explore contexts in an original way, proposing ideas and results that are not just technical solutions of established problems, sees in creativity and in fashion design education the ability to solve problems through materials and their constant innovation for clothes, to experiment or to look at old problems in a different way with the aim of going beyond the usual “fashion” idea. This paper is written at the end of an educational experience in the Knit Design Lab at the School of Design of Politecnico di Milano, where Missoni, the most important Italian knitwear brand, together with Woolmark, the most influencing certification body at an international level for the promotion and enhancement of Merino wool, in collaboration with Knitlab, a digital platform for the learning of the traditional knitting techniques active in the School of Design at Politecnico di Milano, realized a project in which the knitting techniques have been the first tool for the creation, design and prototyping of a clothes collection for the spring-summer 2017, coherent with the brand identity of Missoni and with at least the 70% of merino wool as a condition dictated by Woolmark. The aim of the paper is to highlight the moments of convergence and differentiation regarding the methodologies and the design process into the different areas of design. In this way today we can talk about knitwear design: a specific field of Made in Italy completely changing: to become project, knitwear must produce garments and collections enhancing traditional techniques while expressing the spirit of time and in which the manual technique becomes a research tool and method to deal with all the aspects in their influence on the industrial production chain.