Lesson video

Hello everyone.

How are you today? I hope you're feeling really good, and I'm so pleased that you're here.

My name is Ms. Afzal, and I'll be your art teacher for this lesson, which I'm very pleased about because today we are looking at fabrics.

Our lesson is called fabric manipulation: techniques for texture and form.

Our lesson comes from the unit of work, foundation workshops: developing skills.

We are going to be developing our skills.

We are gonna be getting right into some fabric manipulation.

I hope you're ready with some focus, energy, and enthusiasm.

And if you are, we'll begin.

The outcome for today's lesson is I can explore fabric manipulation techniques and create a textile sample using ruches, layers, or folding.

We have some keywords in our lesson.

Let's go through them.

Manipulation, ruching, texture, and fold/folding.

So what do these words mean? Manipulation is changing or altering fabric to create new shapes, textures, or forms. Ruching, gathering fabric with stitches so it creates ripples, folds, or pleats.

Texture, the surface quality of fabric, which may feel smooth, rough, soft, or structured.

And fold or folding, when fabric is bent or doubled to form ridges, pleats, or layers that add structure and texture.

These are our keywords, manipulation, ruching, texture, and fold/folding.

Let's look out and listen out for them.

They'll be coming up in our lesson today.

Our lesson is called fabric manipulation: techniques for texture and form, and it has two learning cycles, introduction to fabric manipulation, and creating a fabric manipulation sample.

Yes, we are getting super practical.

We're gonna get right into this fabric manipulation.

Let's begin with an introduction to fabric manipulation.

And let's zoom ahead to the end of today's lesson and have a look at what your outcome for today's lesson might look like.

Take a good look at these and pause here and share with someone what's your initial impression of these potential outcomes.

Thanks for sharing.

Fabric manipulation is the process of transforming a flat piece of fabric into something more dynamic by altering its surface.

Designers and artists use different techniques to change the way fabric looks and feels, creating a new texture, shape, and form.

By gathering, folding, cutting, stitching, or layering, the fabric can be given depth and movement that goes beyond its original state.

Artists inspired to create manipulated textiles include Ray Kawakubo, founder of Comme des Garcons, transforms fabric through radical draping and sculptural manipulation to challenge fashion norms. Nigel Cheney is a textile artist who manipulates fabric, prints, and stitching to create textured art pieces.

Priya Ahluwalia is a fashion designer known for upcycling textiles, layering, and reworking fabric to explore identity and sustainability.

Issey Miyake is celebrated for his innovative pleating techniques, turning fabric into sculptural, wearable forms. So here are just some of the artists who are inspired to create manipulated textiles.

When studying a source, artists look at texture, shape, and color.

Even stiff materials like bubble wrap can be manipulated through layering, stitching, or heat shaping to mimic natural forms such as red blood cells.

Pause here and share with someone your impression of the these bubble wrap creations of red blood cells.

Thanks for sharing.

Let's have a check for understanding.

Which of the following fabrics can be used for fabric manipulation? Is it: A, only thin, delicate fabrics like silk or chiffon.

B, only thick, heavy fabrics like denim or wool.

C, a wide range of fabrics from light to heavy.

Or D, only stretchy fabrics like Lycra or jersey.

Pause here and share with someone, which of these fabrics can be used for fabric manipulation? Well done if you selected answer C.

Indeed, a wide range of fabrics from light to heavy can be used for fabric manipulation.

Take a good look at this fabric.

This fabric sample was inspired by a natural source.

How has fabric been manipulated to create this textured sample? Pause here and share with someone.

What do you think? Thanks for sharing.

And what might be the source of inspiration for this fabric sample? Pause here and share with someone.

Thanks for sharing.

The spongy surface of moss can be recreated with ruching or smocking, its uneven growth with layering or stuffing, and its green brown tones with dyeing or tonal fabrics.

Soft textiles like velvet or brushed cotton suggest it's damp, light-absorbing quality.

Perhaps you had some answers like these.

Fabric manipulation adds drama, volume, or delicate detail to fashion.

It can transform plain cloth into something sculptural, playful, or decorative, allowing designers to create unique and striking textiles.

In Elizabethan times, dramatic ruff colors were made by folding, pleating, and starching fine linen into ridges and layers.

This turned soft fabric into stiff, sculptural forms that framed the face and showed wealth and status, often decorated with lace or embroidery.

Common approaches to fabric manipulation include: ruching, gathering fabric to create ripples and folds, layering, building up surfaces with multiple pieces of fabric, fringing, cutting edges into strips to create movement and texture, folding, bending or doubling fabric to create pleats, ridges, or layered shapes that add structure and texture.

Common approaches to fabric manipulation include: thin ruching, on the far left, thick ruching, next one along, fringing, and then layering and folding.

Pause here and share with someone, which of these fabric manipulation approaches are you most drawn to? Thanks for sharing.

Let's have a check for understanding.

True or false? Fabric manipulation is only used to make clothes look more decorative.

Pause here and decide, is this true or false? Well done if you selected false.

And now I'd like you to say a little more about your answer.

Pause here while you do this.

Perhaps you said something like this.

"Fabric manipulation does add decoration, but it can also change the structure of fabric.

Techniques like ruching, folding, or layering can give garments shape, volume, and movement, not just surface detail." An artist might choose a shell as a source for fabric manipulation using pleating, folding, or layering to echo its ridges, curves, and layered surfaces.

Here's Alex.

"I've taken many photographs of shells and bones for this project.

I'm choosing the shells to look at as they have an interesting structure that I want to explore further." It really is very interesting structure.

It's quite a captivating image of the shells on screen.

There are many options when choosing a source to inspire a fabric manipulation sample.

These selected sources contain images of shells and bones, presenting a clear and strong theme.

And now it's time for your first task.

I would like you to choose a source to inspire a fabric manipulation sample.

You could: look through your sketchbook and find a source that can lend itself well to making a structured fabric sample, research and find an image that could be structured from fabric like a shell or bones.

So pause here while you have a go at this task of choosing a source to inspire a fabric manipulation sample.

I'll see you when you're finished.

It's great to be back with you.

So how did you get on with choosing a source to inspire a fabric manipulation sample? There are many possibilities, but you may have chosen something like this.

Here's Alex.

"I've decided to select this image of shells.

I'll focus on the lines I can see on the surface of the shell and try to use folding and pleating techniques to make a sample." And I hope you enjoyed choosing your source to inspire your fabric manipulation sample.

And now we're onto our next learning cycle; creating a fabric manipulation sample.

An artist can begin to change the shape of a flat piece of fabric simply by folding it.

When cloth is folded back on itself, it starts to hold curves, ridges, and angles that weren't there before.

By repeating folds in different directions, the fabric can begin to look more sculptural, almost like the ridges on a seashell.

By layering and overlapping, flat fabric can be turned into something with real structure and volume.

To hold the fold in place, they can be stitched, pinned, or pressed.

Small folds create fine textures, while bigger folds give bold shapes.

Artists who use fabric manipulation techniques in their work: Shaun Samson builds his menswear collections using smocking to gather fabric and felting to fuse fibers into seamless pieces.

Rick Owens is known for conceptual fashion, often using fabric transformations, layering, and structural manipulation.

Maggie Scott is a textile artist who combines felt making and fabric manipulation to explore cultural identity and materiality.

Elena Stonaker is a textile artist who uses layering, quilting, and stuffed forms to create highly tactile, manipulated fabric artworks.

So we can see there are a number of artists who use fabric manipulation techniques in their work.

Let's have a check for understanding.

When folding fabric for manipulation, do you always need heat like an iron to make the fold stay in place? A, yes, heat is always required to fix folds.

B, no, folds can only stay in place if you glue them.

C, folds can also be held with stitching, pins, or tacking, as well as heat.

Or D, yes, without heat, the folds will always fall out.

Pause here while you decide which of these statements is true in terms of using heat to make the folds in fabric manipulations stay in place.

Well done if you selected answer C.

Indeed, folds can also be held with stitching, pins, or tacking, as well as heat.

There are some important considerations when working with an iron.

You must: concentrate and pay attention at all times, always keep your fingers away from the underneath of the iron, make sure your fabric is on a cloth or felt surface when ironing.

Making a fabric manipulation sample can look like this.

Observe your source and cut out at least three different shapes pleat.

Fold your fabric in a pleating style.

Lightly iron folded fabric.

Open the iron fabric pieces to reveal the folds.

That's a fun moment.

Layer your first piece on the second and pin together.

Layer the third smallest piece onto the fabric and pin together.

Choose your cotton thread color and a very thin needle.

Sew the fabric together using a sewing machine or hand stitching.

Let's have a check for understanding, true or false? Designers and artists only use hand sewing when working with fabric manipulation techniques.

Pause here and decide, is this true or false? Well done if you selected false.

And now I'd like you to say a little more about your answer.

Pause here while you do this.

Perhaps you said something like this.

"Designers use both hand sewing and sewing machines.

Hand stitching gives detail and control, while sewing machines allow faster gathers, tucks, and layers.

And now it's time for your next task, creating a fabric manipulation sample.

You should: choose your fabric type, observe your source image and decide how you will cut your fabric, cut the pieces to the shapes you need, start folding your fabric pieces and iron them lightly with an iron and make sure to be aware of all those safety considerations when using an iron, open the ironed pieces and layer them on top of each other, pin them together where you think you'll need to stitch them, and stitch the pieces together by hand or with a sewing machine.

So pause here while you have a go at this multi-stage task of creating a fabric manipulation sample.

Enjoy your task and I'll see you when you're finished.

It's great to be back with you.

How did you get on with that task of creating a fabric manipulation sample? You may have made something wonderful like this.

Let's hear from Alex.

"Manipulating my fabric into a shell shape was easier than I expected.

I used a layering, folding technique, fixing the pleats with heat from the iron.

Hand sewing my sample made it easier to add tension where needed.

I plan to develop these shapes further in a future fashion piece." Oh my! That does sound exciting.

Pause here and share with someone, where do you think Alex could take this next? What do you think his future fashion piece could look like? Thanks for sharing your ideas.

And now I'd like you to share your fabric manipulation samples with each other, and offer each other some suggestions on where you could take this sample next.

What ideas do you have for creating a future fashion piece based on your samples? Thanks for sharing with each other.

In our lesson, fabric manipulation: techniques for texture and form, we've covered the following: artists and designers use manipulation techniques to transform flat fabric into sculptural forms. By experimenting with ruching, folding, pleating, or layering, they can completely change the surface of a textile.

These processes create new texture, adding depth, movement, and visual interest.

In fashion and textile art, fabric manipulation is used not only to decorate, but also to build structure and shape, turning ordinary cloth into expressive works of art or dramatic garments.

Well done everyone for joining in with this lesson.

It was great to explore fabric manipulation together, to look into all those different techniques that we can use, to work with our fabrics and transform them.

I think it was so interesting to explore this together, and I'm really excited about where you're going to take this next, and what your samples may turn into in the future.

Perhaps some kind of expressive work of art or a dramatic garment.

I love the sound of that.

Perhaps keep your eyes out for ruching, folding, pleating, or layering that you can see in fabrics or garments that you encounter as you go through your days.

I hope you enjoyed this lesson.

I really enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to seeing you at another art lesson soon.

Until then, stay creative.