New Collection by Common Parts- Brand Story and more..
Who is the creator behind this collection ?
I am Ana Dinuta, the founder and designer of Common Parts, an upcycling brand concerned with repurposing and reusing different kinds of pre and post consumer textile waste. I would describe myself as a creative spirit with an analytical education.
My background is in building architecture but I have shifted to fashion with a desire to put my creativity to work more often and most of all to help solving the sustainability issues we have now. I started studying fashion design and pattern design and afterwards experimenting with all pieces of fabric that got into my hands and reading and researching a lot. Thus, Common Parts and all the mini collections that followed were my answer to the question I asked myself: ‘Does the world really needs me to design some new clothing item’, given the total waste in the industry and its environmental impact? Probably not :), at least that is what the figures show and because of that I have chosen to manage discarded fabrics and work only reclaimed, reused or repurposed items.
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What was you inspiration for this collection?
The mini-collection we have showed at RCW Iasi is called #reusetime. That is the inspiration. An answer to the general theme launched on Innovative Future Platform (the section coordinated by Lucian Broscatean and Ioana Ciolacu) : ‘What if, I wonder… => what if we actually could reuse time ? - and I suggest doing this first by embedding the countless hours of handwork in a crochet lace in an upcycled item and second by appealing the memory value of a design, like the bag of a cotton picker or a cotton flower shape - all of this seen on the runway. This idea of including the handcrochet also has a memory value for me personally, a good one and a bad one as well. The good one is about my grandma who used to work on this a lot of hours and the handcrochet always reminds me of her and the time spent together in childhood, while the bad one is about a very good high school friend that at some point asked me if I could make her a dress with some handcrochet and I answered that it would not be cool at all, would seam old and boho and outdated, therefore I did not make it. Now that my friend is no longer in this world with me and I often think of her and of us, I turned that into a challenge - how to make the cool handcrochet dress. I believe I’ve almost managed to do so :)
What are the key pieces in the collection?
So, the key pieces, the key pieces follow the answer at the previous question and are more like design elements then like entire items: the dress made in reclaimed hand crochet (the dress that will always be unique, because it is impossible to replicate it in an identical arrangement), the pants and dress that remind us of the cotton pickers, the urban reclaimed denim that keeps and shows the previous pockets, waist bands and belt loops in a quest to reclaim the time used in these sewing operations.
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How long did it take to create it?
The creation of this collection was not very compact, but rather spreading on a longer period while managing other activities for Common Parts. If I am to summarize I belive there was one week for the drawings, two weeks for patterns, three weeks for the deconstruction , cleaning and sewing and probably around 362 hours of …thinking…freely …on the subject of #reusetime
What message do you hope to convey through this collection?
That upcycling is cool, that upcycling is authentic and it can retell real stories by simply existing, that in it’s uniqueness every upcycled item has a bigger value than it’s price and that you don’t have to pay fortunes to contribute to the healing of the fashion system and still be yourself.
Check them out here!