One-Piece Flat Pattern for Printed Beachwear Cover-Ups to Minimize Cut-and-Sew Waste and Achieve Sustainability

Abstract

Cover-ups are a type of garment worn to the beach or an informal social event. They are attractive, convenient, easy to wear, and functional. It should be wrinkle-resistant, lightweight, and keep the wearer cool and comfortable besides its aesthetical properties. This work focuses on achieving sustainability in designing and producing printed beachwear cover-ups, from the one-piece flat pattern to the final product. The designs balanced aesthetics, patternmaking, and fabric waste for sustainable, innovative garment pieces. The geometric one-piece flat pattern is a way to reduce fabric waste during cutting by utilizing as much fabric area as possible. The work combines crochet, a traditional handicraft, with contemporary digital crafts to produce printable digital designs with sustainable values. Adobe Photoshop capabilities have been employed to create printing patterns utilizing the photos of the previously implemented handmade crochet motifs. The printing designs were applied to a single jersey knitted fabric (80% Polyester – 20% Spandex) by sublimation printing. The specialists in the clothing and textile domain evaluated the proposed nine beachwear cover-ups produced in this work. The questionnaire was designed to evaluate motif quality, design foundations, flat pattern making, the amount of fabric waste, and the final product. The responses to the questionnaire were statistically significant on the success of the proposed designs in minimizing cut-and-sew wastes and creating innovative printed beachwear cover-up products that attain sustainability.