Draping dynamic contours with a drooping material = wtf SO MUCH MATH.
May 2, 2017 6:57 PM Subscribe
Every year, I’m blown away by the intricate gowns at the Met Gala. I’m impressed not just by the creativity, but by how much math, physics, and engineering is lurking beneath the layers of silk and lace.
Above the fold is the more formal article. I actually prefer the Twitter thread it grew out of, which includes lots of illustrative photos and a more casual tone.
Above the fold is the more formal article. I actually prefer the Twitter thread it grew out of, which includes lots of illustrative photos and a more casual tone.
Have you seen a dress pattern? Designers are, at a minimum, doing some kind of math to create a flat pattern that when cut out and sewn makes the right 3D shape. In that twitter feed, she certainly implies that there's some kind of calculations going on to make sure the fabric and designs have sufficient structural integrity
1. Fabric is expensive, Lace can be >$150/meter. Over-buying is infeasible. 2. Fixing flawed design STILL needs math (& is harder).posted by straight at 8:02 PM on May 2, 2017 [3 favorites]
Designers are, at a minimum, doing some kind of math to create a flat pattern that when cut out and sewn makes the right 3D shape.
I've seen shoe patterns. You know how they're created? You make the pattern on the last.
posted by kenko at 8:11 PM on May 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
I've seen shoe patterns. You know how they're created? You make the pattern on the last.
posted by kenko at 8:11 PM on May 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
She does imply that there must be calculations to ensure the structural integrity (and to ensure that you don't get too much or too little fabric). But: that doesn't mean that there are. She also implies that there's fancy calculations going on in the construction of a high heel (sliding block problem! friction! inclined slopes!). And yet: that may be because she doesn't actually know how to make a high heel. Does a practiced cordwainer calculate coefficients of friction? Or is that the sort of thing you learn by doing it a lot, during a long apprenticeship, with someone who repeatedly shows you how high you can feasibly make a heel with this sort of shape, or how you need to modify a last if you want to do x, y, or z, or how to grade a pattern onto your different sizes of lasts?
My father has described, occasionally, his attempts to get reproducible recipes from his mother, which were all hopeless, because she had only practical, particularized knowledge. He could have learned to cook like her if he'd trained with her in the kitchen, but she couldn't produce a recipe with quantities and times and temperatures, etc. (Lots of "cook it until it's done", that kind of thing.)
Does a patternmaker look at a sketch, and make a pattern flat, employing fancy math in order to get it to come out right in 3d? What formulae do they use? Were 19th century couturiers early non-Euclidean geometers? Does a patternmaker look at a sketch, and make a pattern flat, employing a lot of hard-earned but particularized skill to know, more or less, how to cut it flat so that it'll be right when constructed? (The pattern can of course be constructed out of material other than the final material for the garment, to check this, and you can create a muslin for fit purposes, etc.) Does a patternmaker construct a pattern on a 3d model? Are there yet further possibilities?
posted by kenko at 8:24 PM on May 2, 2017 [11 favorites]
My father has described, occasionally, his attempts to get reproducible recipes from his mother, which were all hopeless, because she had only practical, particularized knowledge. He could have learned to cook like her if he'd trained with her in the kitchen, but she couldn't produce a recipe with quantities and times and temperatures, etc. (Lots of "cook it until it's done", that kind of thing.)
Does a patternmaker look at a sketch, and make a pattern flat, employing fancy math in order to get it to come out right in 3d? What formulae do they use? Were 19th century couturiers early non-Euclidean geometers? Does a patternmaker look at a sketch, and make a pattern flat, employing a lot of hard-earned but particularized skill to know, more or less, how to cut it flat so that it'll be right when constructed? (The pattern can of course be constructed out of material other than the final material for the garment, to check this, and you can create a muslin for fit purposes, etc.) Does a patternmaker construct a pattern on a 3d model? Are there yet further possibilities?
posted by kenko at 8:24 PM on May 2, 2017 [11 favorites]
Shoe pattern on a last, if you're interested. Then you can cut the tape and lay it flat, and cut out the individual pieces. The pieces look pretty weird! They're all deformed and shit. This is a waaaaaay more sensible way than trying to do it flat from the get-go.
posted by kenko at 8:28 PM on May 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by kenko at 8:28 PM on May 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
When I was watching the live-action Cinderella movie, all I could think of was how the costumes moved. Especially during the ballroom scene (those gowns were either CGI enhanced or were engineered very specifically), but also during most of the movie. I've never been so distracted by the movement of fabric in my life.
That's not a bad thing, just an observation.
posted by hippybear at 8:29 PM on May 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
That's not a bad thing, just an observation.
posted by hippybear at 8:29 PM on May 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
A Stress Analysis of the Strapless Evening Gown.
posted by storybored at 8:43 PM on May 2, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by storybored at 8:43 PM on May 2, 2017 [6 favorites]
I've seen shoe patterns. You know how they're created? You make the pattern on the last.
What you're stumbling upon is the difference between creating a pattern by measuring (which involves at least some explicit math) and draping (which involves draping fabric on a body—or a last—and then cutting it in place).
But also, you're missing something: how did the last get created? The last itself is a pattern! Was it created by measuring a foot (or a bunch of feet)? Then you're back to square one. A last can also be created by taking a cast of a foot and smoothing it out, which is essentially an extreme form of draping.
This is a waaaaaay more sensible way than trying to do it flat from the get-go.
That's a fine approach when you have a last (or a human body), but it also has significant limitations. Patterning by measuring and scaling is generally more popular than patterning by draping. (And see above for the problem of creating the last in the first place.)
Does a patternmaker look at a sketch, and make a pattern flat, employing fancy math in order to get it to come out right in 3d?
Sometimes, yes, depending on what you mean by 'fancy.'
Were 19th century couturiers early non-Euclidean geometers?
In Europe the transition from clothing patterns based on simple Euclidean geometry to patterns based on what we would call non-Euclidean geometry (which allows for closely-fitted clothing that still permits a good range of motion) occurred in the 14th century, which saw some of the most dramatic changes in fashion in Western history. Solving the problems of, e.g., how to have a tightly fitted sleeve while still allowing the wearer to swing a sword or do field work, amounted to applied non-Euclidean geometry.
Math is more than just equations and formulas, and clothing designers and patternmakers are definitely doing math.
posted by jedicus at 8:50 PM on May 2, 2017 [28 favorites]
What you're stumbling upon is the difference between creating a pattern by measuring (which involves at least some explicit math) and draping (which involves draping fabric on a body—or a last—and then cutting it in place).
But also, you're missing something: how did the last get created? The last itself is a pattern! Was it created by measuring a foot (or a bunch of feet)? Then you're back to square one. A last can also be created by taking a cast of a foot and smoothing it out, which is essentially an extreme form of draping.
This is a waaaaaay more sensible way than trying to do it flat from the get-go.
That's a fine approach when you have a last (or a human body), but it also has significant limitations. Patterning by measuring and scaling is generally more popular than patterning by draping. (And see above for the problem of creating the last in the first place.)
Does a patternmaker look at a sketch, and make a pattern flat, employing fancy math in order to get it to come out right in 3d?
Sometimes, yes, depending on what you mean by 'fancy.'
Were 19th century couturiers early non-Euclidean geometers?
In Europe the transition from clothing patterns based on simple Euclidean geometry to patterns based on what we would call non-Euclidean geometry (which allows for closely-fitted clothing that still permits a good range of motion) occurred in the 14th century, which saw some of the most dramatic changes in fashion in Western history. Solving the problems of, e.g., how to have a tightly fitted sleeve while still allowing the wearer to swing a sword or do field work, amounted to applied non-Euclidean geometry.
Math is more than just equations and formulas, and clothing designers and patternmakers are definitely doing math.
posted by jedicus at 8:50 PM on May 2, 2017 [28 favorites]
As someone who does actually design clothing and who writes patterns so that others can reproduce my designs in multiple sizes (not to mention the input of multiple other variables such as materials choices), the cordwaining comparison is not particularly apt. There is a vast difference between what I do and creating footwear for a relatively small, discrete set of sizes. I'm also not particularly enjoying the sense of condescension from kenko. You are very much proving the point of the tweets.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 8:52 PM on May 2, 2017 [40 favorites]
posted by bitter-girl.com at 8:52 PM on May 2, 2017 [40 favorites]
Also, what jedicus just said.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 8:53 PM on May 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by bitter-girl.com at 8:53 PM on May 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
As a prize for getting this far through this DELIGHTFUL thread, I'll share my favorite math nerd designer Iris Van Herpen.
(Making jam from a recipe, you don't need to understand it. Assembling clothing from a pattern, you don't need to understand it. Creating that recipe or drafting that pattern: you understand it. Look into "drafting a sloper" for literally the most basic math a dressmaker does, all the time.)
posted by jeweled accumulation at 9:05 PM on May 2, 2017 [15 favorites]
(Making jam from a recipe, you don't need to understand it. Assembling clothing from a pattern, you don't need to understand it. Creating that recipe or drafting that pattern: you understand it. Look into "drafting a sloper" for literally the most basic math a dressmaker does, all the time.)
posted by jeweled accumulation at 9:05 PM on May 2, 2017 [15 favorites]
Also, as a physicist and a third generation engineer, I would like to point out that practical engineering also involves a lot less complex math and scientific understanding and a lot more rules of thumb, prototyping, and gut-level knowledge of materials than people give it credit for.
In Kenko's example, a baker is in fact very comparable to an engineer, insofar as the incurious ones don't need to know a lot of the science behind what they do as long as they remember the basic equations and rules of thumb and have intuition honed on experience.
posted by Zalzidrax at 9:10 PM on May 2, 2017 [12 favorites]
In Kenko's example, a baker is in fact very comparable to an engineer, insofar as the incurious ones don't need to know a lot of the science behind what they do as long as they remember the basic equations and rules of thumb and have intuition honed on experience.
posted by Zalzidrax at 9:10 PM on May 2, 2017 [12 favorites]
Such a person could undoubtedly make a corset, but then, I can make jam, and don't know jack shit about the chemistry of pectin, and don't for a second believe that in doing so I'm practicing chemistry, theoretical or applied
If you're following a recipe you're doing exactly as much chemistry as I did in high school blindly following lab instructions. If you're adapting a recipe you have for a different fruit with a different acidity and thus tweaking how much pectin you use in order to ensure it gels properly, then you are doing chemistry, whether it not it involves whiteboards and Erlenmeyer flasks. If your dad had done as much cooking as your mom, he would probably learn what "done" means at different temperatures at different levels of doneness, which whether or not he knew the details of how connective tissue and proteins break down at various temperatures over time, he would have an intuitive understanding of where he could make relative projections about how and when meat would finish cooking based on the desired outcome. Which is also chemistry with a bit of biology maybe. It's part of why I love cooking and baking, and baking in particular is very chemistry-ish - a little too much liquid, too little salt, or too much butter can drastically change the outcome of whatever you're making because there are sensitive and irreversible chemical reactions happening. You don't have to be a chemical engineer (and I am not!) to understand it, just someone who experiments and learns and thus figures out how to properly control the outcome they want. Much like scientists do.
Similarly, these designers are designing. They're designing from scratch. They're not following a pattern, they're inventing it. They're creating a structure from scratch, the geometry from scratch, etc. Whether or not their process of doing so "looks like" what you believe math and materials science and structural engineering look like (after the field has been defined by men for centuries) doesn't negate the fact that the principles are there, and a failure to understand the fundamentals of these fields at at least an intuitive level means these people will not be successful at their jobs.
I also question how you think engineers do their jobs. I don't know what your experience is, and perhaps you are a type of engineer so apologies if I'm about to teach grandma to suck eggs here, but I am an engineer who has worked on a lot of complex hardware for a long time and the degree to which intuition wins out over math in probably 85% of design is pretty high. The cordwainer probably isn't calculating coefficients of friction on a regular basis, but frankly, neither are the mechanical engineers on my team. They have, through experience and apprenticeship and education (just like the cordwainer) learned a rough intuitive sense of how materials physically interact with each other and what interfaces will have more or less friction, and they generally choose the right material to use on a qualitative basis. Only when things get really hairy are actual calculations done.
I mean, if you really want to go nuts and insist that math must happen at the same time as sewing, come visit my employer. We have a lot of sewing machines and looms for three separate engineering projects and the people who are in charge of those aspects of those projects are as technical as the rest of the engineering staff (and given the accordant respect as such), even if they don't have engineering degrees and they don't do as much vector calculus as other members of their team.
To me saying that women are interested in Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry because cowls are cut as rectangles is like saying that they're interested in gastroenterology because, well, they eat, don't they?
I actually love hearing women who are very good at textile type work talk about it, because they say things like "I love figuring out how the shapes fit together" and "I like experimenting with different fabric cuts" and honestly a lot of what they say sounds a damn lot like teenage boys talking about how they want to go into engineering because they like figuring out how to build things, to which everyone nods sagely and agrees they will be brilliant contributors to STEM fields.
From the Twitter thread:
Q: Women are inherently uninterested in STEM!
A: Maybe idiots should stop constantly redefining STEM to exclude anything feminine.
Quite.
posted by olinerd at 9:12 PM on May 2, 2017 [56 favorites]
If you're following a recipe you're doing exactly as much chemistry as I did in high school blindly following lab instructions. If you're adapting a recipe you have for a different fruit with a different acidity and thus tweaking how much pectin you use in order to ensure it gels properly, then you are doing chemistry, whether it not it involves whiteboards and Erlenmeyer flasks. If your dad had done as much cooking as your mom, he would probably learn what "done" means at different temperatures at different levels of doneness, which whether or not he knew the details of how connective tissue and proteins break down at various temperatures over time, he would have an intuitive understanding of where he could make relative projections about how and when meat would finish cooking based on the desired outcome. Which is also chemistry with a bit of biology maybe. It's part of why I love cooking and baking, and baking in particular is very chemistry-ish - a little too much liquid, too little salt, or too much butter can drastically change the outcome of whatever you're making because there are sensitive and irreversible chemical reactions happening. You don't have to be a chemical engineer (and I am not!) to understand it, just someone who experiments and learns and thus figures out how to properly control the outcome they want. Much like scientists do.
Similarly, these designers are designing. They're designing from scratch. They're not following a pattern, they're inventing it. They're creating a structure from scratch, the geometry from scratch, etc. Whether or not their process of doing so "looks like" what you believe math and materials science and structural engineering look like (after the field has been defined by men for centuries) doesn't negate the fact that the principles are there, and a failure to understand the fundamentals of these fields at at least an intuitive level means these people will not be successful at their jobs.
I also question how you think engineers do their jobs. I don't know what your experience is, and perhaps you are a type of engineer so apologies if I'm about to teach grandma to suck eggs here, but I am an engineer who has worked on a lot of complex hardware for a long time and the degree to which intuition wins out over math in probably 85% of design is pretty high. The cordwainer probably isn't calculating coefficients of friction on a regular basis, but frankly, neither are the mechanical engineers on my team. They have, through experience and apprenticeship and education (just like the cordwainer) learned a rough intuitive sense of how materials physically interact with each other and what interfaces will have more or less friction, and they generally choose the right material to use on a qualitative basis. Only when things get really hairy are actual calculations done.
I mean, if you really want to go nuts and insist that math must happen at the same time as sewing, come visit my employer. We have a lot of sewing machines and looms for three separate engineering projects and the people who are in charge of those aspects of those projects are as technical as the rest of the engineering staff (and given the accordant respect as such), even if they don't have engineering degrees and they don't do as much vector calculus as other members of their team.
To me saying that women are interested in Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry because cowls are cut as rectangles is like saying that they're interested in gastroenterology because, well, they eat, don't they?
I actually love hearing women who are very good at textile type work talk about it, because they say things like "I love figuring out how the shapes fit together" and "I like experimenting with different fabric cuts" and honestly a lot of what they say sounds a damn lot like teenage boys talking about how they want to go into engineering because they like figuring out how to build things, to which everyone nods sagely and agrees they will be brilliant contributors to STEM fields.
From the Twitter thread:
Q: Women are inherently uninterested in STEM!
A: Maybe idiots should stop constantly redefining STEM to exclude anything feminine.
Quite.
posted by olinerd at 9:12 PM on May 2, 2017 [56 favorites]
If you're following a recipe you're doing exactly as much chemistry as I did in high school blindly following lab instructions
Well, I don't think I "did chemistry" in any meaningful sense in high school. I think I followed some algorithms, same as I do following a recipe. If you grant me enough chemical knowledge to know that acid is necessary for pectin to gel and that such and such fruits are more acidic than others, then I can apply that chemical knowledge in tweaking a recipe, sure, but that isn't knowledge that I need to have. (It isn't knowledge—about pectin and acid, I mean—that I did have for several years in first making jam.) But that's already a very abstract thing to know! It can be chemistry because you granted me knowledge of things like acidity (and for that matter, pectin) as the relevant properties. If it had just been the case that through long years of jamming I'd learned that this fruit won't set unless I squeeze some lemon juice into it, but this other fruit will, and I'd drawn up a list of fruits like that, and that was it, I don't think that would be doing chemistry, because it's too particularized. If you (or bitter-girl.com) want to tell me that this is now a terrible analogy for what designers do, because it's not particularized like that, then I'm happy to be corrected. But that's not something that can be conveyed just by saying: look at the finished product. Because the finished product can be produced in lots of different ways.
A: Maybe idiots should stop constantly redefining STEM to exclude anything feminine.
I would be happy to run the exact same line regarding any stereotypically masculine activity! Throwing a football—not physics! Walking—not biomechanics! Grilling a steak—not whatever! (Chemistry, I guess.)
Look, I appreciate the testimony from people like bitter-girl.com saying "yes, actually, this is correct." I mean—testiness withdrawn. My annoyance is not with the idea that a stereotypically feminine pursuit (or interest—most of the designers represented at the gala are men, I believe) but with a very common tendency to assimilate everything to STEM or STEM-y fields, as if they're trash otherwise. Highlight in recent memory was someone saying to me that Buddha was a great neuroscientist. Or that "your brain" does all sorts of fancy math in order to calculate the path of the baseball so you can catch it—also a popular (and male!) analogy, which I also think is silly and misleading, and seductive only because we're all so wild for STEM-y things. The talented outfielder: not a physicist (neither is the talented outfielder's brain; that's even sillier). And this article and set of tweets seemed to be more of the same sort of scientism, which illegitimately goes from "this artifact's workings (or this action's being carried out, for the outfielder) requires complicated scientific principles to explain" to "the person who created it/did it employed complicated scientific principles". That isn't so.
But also, you're missing something: how did the last get created? The last itself is a pattern! Was it created by measuring a foot (or a bunch of feet)? Then you're back to square one.
I don't see how, actually; I mean, dig this highly accelerated (first) video of someone making a last (dig especially the cat). Is he a geometer? I mean—I don't think so.
posted by kenko at 9:36 PM on May 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
Well, I don't think I "did chemistry" in any meaningful sense in high school. I think I followed some algorithms, same as I do following a recipe. If you grant me enough chemical knowledge to know that acid is necessary for pectin to gel and that such and such fruits are more acidic than others, then I can apply that chemical knowledge in tweaking a recipe, sure, but that isn't knowledge that I need to have. (It isn't knowledge—about pectin and acid, I mean—that I did have for several years in first making jam.) But that's already a very abstract thing to know! It can be chemistry because you granted me knowledge of things like acidity (and for that matter, pectin) as the relevant properties. If it had just been the case that through long years of jamming I'd learned that this fruit won't set unless I squeeze some lemon juice into it, but this other fruit will, and I'd drawn up a list of fruits like that, and that was it, I don't think that would be doing chemistry, because it's too particularized. If you (or bitter-girl.com) want to tell me that this is now a terrible analogy for what designers do, because it's not particularized like that, then I'm happy to be corrected. But that's not something that can be conveyed just by saying: look at the finished product. Because the finished product can be produced in lots of different ways.
A: Maybe idiots should stop constantly redefining STEM to exclude anything feminine.
I would be happy to run the exact same line regarding any stereotypically masculine activity! Throwing a football—not physics! Walking—not biomechanics! Grilling a steak—not whatever! (Chemistry, I guess.)
Look, I appreciate the testimony from people like bitter-girl.com saying "yes, actually, this is correct." I mean—testiness withdrawn. My annoyance is not with the idea that a stereotypically feminine pursuit (or interest—most of the designers represented at the gala are men, I believe) but with a very common tendency to assimilate everything to STEM or STEM-y fields, as if they're trash otherwise. Highlight in recent memory was someone saying to me that Buddha was a great neuroscientist. Or that "your brain" does all sorts of fancy math in order to calculate the path of the baseball so you can catch it—also a popular (and male!) analogy, which I also think is silly and misleading, and seductive only because we're all so wild for STEM-y things. The talented outfielder: not a physicist (neither is the talented outfielder's brain; that's even sillier). And this article and set of tweets seemed to be more of the same sort of scientism, which illegitimately goes from "this artifact's workings (or this action's being carried out, for the outfielder) requires complicated scientific principles to explain" to "the person who created it/did it employed complicated scientific principles". That isn't so.
But also, you're missing something: how did the last get created? The last itself is a pattern! Was it created by measuring a foot (or a bunch of feet)? Then you're back to square one.
I don't see how, actually; I mean, dig this highly accelerated (first) video of someone making a last (dig especially the cat). Is he a geometer? I mean—I don't think so.
posted by kenko at 9:36 PM on May 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
kenko, STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. I feel like your comments are ignoring the TE and insisting something only counts as STEM if it is using lots of advanced Math or producing or interacting with generalizable Science. The point of the article is that what dress designers actually do is similar to what engineers actually do. Most engineers are not scientists.
posted by straight at 9:45 PM on May 2, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by straight at 9:45 PM on May 2, 2017 [9 favorites]
The point of the article is that what dress designers actually do is similar to what engineers actually do. Most engineers are not scientists.
You are probably right about my overlooking "engineering", yeah. I apologize for starting out the gate so twerpily.
posted by kenko at 9:54 PM on May 2, 2017
You are probably right about my overlooking "engineering", yeah. I apologize for starting out the gate so twerpily.
posted by kenko at 9:54 PM on May 2, 2017
This isn't some random person trying to invoke neuroscience to give their love of Buddha extra cachet, this is an actual goddamn physicist gushing about all the physics they see in another area of study they are interested in. We do this sometimes.
posted by Zalzidrax at 9:57 PM on May 2, 2017 [14 favorites]
posted by Zalzidrax at 9:57 PM on May 2, 2017 [14 favorites]
We could use a historian of science and engineering here. Every art and techne grew from thousands of years of skilled doing based on painful experience, rules of thumb, and mostly-wrong theories, and I would not like to compete with the artisans with their own tools. But the change to hypothesis and test and theory, and extrapolation, the development of modern science and engineering, was a massive qualitative change that had recognizable social and economic effects in each field it rolled over.
I don't think patternmaking has become modern engineering yet because we don't have mass custom clothes that fit yet. I follow this, because I would like clothes that fit and have enough math to think "We'll solve it with algorithms!" ...Ha. Applied mathematicians give speeches showing their plan of work at SICPP or such and then vanish. Either it's too goddamn hard to generalize or they're behind an NDA at eShakti or NASA.
There are even spots where I'd expect algorithms to be finished and apparently they aren't -- e.g., laying out the pieces for an array of clothes (different numbers of different sizes) on a cutting-bed. There is software that does it but the result gets tuned up by someone with an eye.
Fashion-Incubator describes patternmaking, including CAD and other algorithmized approaches, as a trade although the standards of Standard Work may be based on science.
posted by clew at 10:19 PM on May 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
I don't think patternmaking has become modern engineering yet because we don't have mass custom clothes that fit yet. I follow this, because I would like clothes that fit and have enough math to think "We'll solve it with algorithms!" ...Ha. Applied mathematicians give speeches showing their plan of work at SICPP or such and then vanish. Either it's too goddamn hard to generalize or they're behind an NDA at eShakti or NASA.
There are even spots where I'd expect algorithms to be finished and apparently they aren't -- e.g., laying out the pieces for an array of clothes (different numbers of different sizes) on a cutting-bed. There is software that does it but the result gets tuned up by someone with an eye.
Fashion-Incubator describes patternmaking, including CAD and other algorithmized approaches, as a trade although the standards of Standard Work may be based on science.
posted by clew at 10:19 PM on May 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
When I was watching the live-action Cinderella movie, all I could think of was how the costumes moved. Especially during the ballroom scene (those gowns were either CGI enhanced or were engineered very specifically), but also during most of the movie. I've never been so distracted by the movement of fabric in my life.
Indeed - and I think the really interesting article to write would be about how all those techniques developed to model the dynamics of clothing, breasts, hair and other such tricky objects in CGI (which assuredly is being done from a mathematical perspective) could inform and inspire real world clothing design.
posted by rongorongo at 12:54 AM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
Indeed - and I think the really interesting article to write would be about how all those techniques developed to model the dynamics of clothing, breasts, hair and other such tricky objects in CGI (which assuredly is being done from a mathematical perspective) could inform and inspire real world clothing design.
posted by rongorongo at 12:54 AM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
Also, as a physicist and a third generation engineer, I would like to point out that practical engineering also involves a lot less complex math and scientific understanding and a lot more rules of thumb, prototyping, and gut-level knowledge of materials than people give it credit for.
I think this can't be stressed enough. I recently built some brick steps for our new frnech doors going into the garden and while I'm sure a lot of structural engineering and physics and chemistry know how would go into how to design the steps with a minimum amount of materials, I didn't have to build to a minimum budget. I was just building some steps so what does it matter if they cost £150 or if they cost £200. If I hired someone to build them it would cost £400 so either way as long as they're decent then I come out ahead.
I ended up digging a deeper foundation than what was necessary and backfilling with the clay and tamping it down to a solid subbase. I then poured a 150mm concrete foundation reinforced with rebar. (Mixed about 700 kg of concrete in a wheelbarrow not fun) I built two courses of the steps out of engineering bricks to stay well below any frost line that would be around and then build the steps with the facing bricks. I even had supports in the back to ensure that the actual stone steps were well supported. These extra supports are probably unnecessary, along with the super thick foundation and even the two courses of engineering bricks but they probably added £30 all together to the entire project and I know that they are built SOLID.
It is like everything I end up building. I could probably do it cheaper but I instead do it overkill and end up with something that will not break usually for much less than what it would have cost to have someone else do it.
posted by koolkat at 1:22 AM on May 3, 2017
I think this can't be stressed enough. I recently built some brick steps for our new frnech doors going into the garden and while I'm sure a lot of structural engineering and physics and chemistry know how would go into how to design the steps with a minimum amount of materials, I didn't have to build to a minimum budget. I was just building some steps so what does it matter if they cost £150 or if they cost £200. If I hired someone to build them it would cost £400 so either way as long as they're decent then I come out ahead.
I ended up digging a deeper foundation than what was necessary and backfilling with the clay and tamping it down to a solid subbase. I then poured a 150mm concrete foundation reinforced with rebar. (Mixed about 700 kg of concrete in a wheelbarrow not fun) I built two courses of the steps out of engineering bricks to stay well below any frost line that would be around and then build the steps with the facing bricks. I even had supports in the back to ensure that the actual stone steps were well supported. These extra supports are probably unnecessary, along with the super thick foundation and even the two courses of engineering bricks but they probably added £30 all together to the entire project and I know that they are built SOLID.
It is like everything I end up building. I could probably do it cheaper but I instead do it overkill and end up with something that will not break usually for much less than what it would have cost to have someone else do it.
posted by koolkat at 1:22 AM on May 3, 2017
Having worked for a designer and seen patterns being made I can safely say that there is no math (are no maths) at least not in the classic sense of calculating. I think this might juts be one example of the fact that math is in everything if you look for it. The maths might be in the appreciation of complex flexible columnar shapes that move over a dynamic form. An unconscious math let's say.
Designers and drapers work first in muslin which is cheap. They lay this over a dress form or an actual body and draw lines and then cut, and fit and recut. 'Muslins' are then sewn up and fitted and adjusted and so on until things seem right. This is then laid out and traced with allowances for seams and a sample is sewn from a cheapish material that will hang like the final fabric and this is again fitted and adjusted then traced again. Its a long process before it heads into cutting and sewing the final fabric. It's done by look and feel with previous knowledge of what works and what doesn't, and letting serendipity slip in now and then.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 4:48 AM on May 3, 2017 [6 favorites]
Designers and drapers work first in muslin which is cheap. They lay this over a dress form or an actual body and draw lines and then cut, and fit and recut. 'Muslins' are then sewn up and fitted and adjusted and so on until things seem right. This is then laid out and traced with allowances for seams and a sample is sewn from a cheapish material that will hang like the final fabric and this is again fitted and adjusted then traced again. Its a long process before it heads into cutting and sewing the final fabric. It's done by look and feel with previous knowledge of what works and what doesn't, and letting serendipity slip in now and then.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 4:48 AM on May 3, 2017 [6 favorites]
Engineering is classically a field of bridges, buildings, ball bearings, and machines. But it’s also fundamental in transforming flat sheets of fabric, piles of feathers, and strings of beads into gorgeous gowns
They're entirely different processes with entirely different qualifications, purposes, economical structures, social organization... To reduce fashion to engineering is to demolish the difference.
People rarely think about the engineering of gala gowns, or of fashion at all. This is part of a larger problem of treating traditionally feminine interests as non-science-related
Perhaps people rarely think about "the engineering of gala gowns" because fashion and engineering have very little in common. To say that fashion is like engineering seems like a bad case of Engineer's Disease.
posted by dmh at 5:55 AM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
They're entirely different processes with entirely different qualifications, purposes, economical structures, social organization... To reduce fashion to engineering is to demolish the difference.
People rarely think about the engineering of gala gowns, or of fashion at all. This is part of a larger problem of treating traditionally feminine interests as non-science-related
Perhaps people rarely think about "the engineering of gala gowns" because fashion and engineering have very little in common. To say that fashion is like engineering seems like a bad case of Engineer's Disease.
posted by dmh at 5:55 AM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
Hmmm. I actually do a fair amount of math when I'm knitting. It's not calculus or anything, but I also haven't used any calculus in the CS classes I've taken, and I don't think that anyone would deny that they're STEM. I'm not a designer, but I do things like add bust shaping to patterns that are designed for people with smaller boobs than mine. Knitting stretches, which is enough for women with small busts, but it's not enough for curvier women. One of the trends I've noticed among knitters in recent years is that there's a lot more emphasis on figuring out how to alter patterns to fit your individual shape. The actual computations are pretty simple, but you have to figure out the shape that you want and what combination of tricks will get you from flat to curved in the right way.
I guess that for me, the point isn't whether garment design and construction are literally engineering. It's that conventional wisdom says that women are bad at STEM because we're bad at things like spatial reasoning, and that stuff is actually pretty important in trades and crafts that are associated with women.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:18 AM on May 3, 2017 [23 favorites]
I guess that for me, the point isn't whether garment design and construction are literally engineering. It's that conventional wisdom says that women are bad at STEM because we're bad at things like spatial reasoning, and that stuff is actually pretty important in trades and crafts that are associated with women.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:18 AM on May 3, 2017 [23 favorites]
Solving the problems of, e.g., how to have a tightly fitted sleeve while still allowing the wearer to swing a sword or do field work, amounted to applied non-Euclidean geometry.
Not to disparage the computational skills of 14th century tailors but "materials science" both in the thread and loom technology and also metallurgy were probably equally vital, one may visualize a lovely curve but without sharp scissors and quality fabric, it'll be impractical to construct.
posted by sammyo at 6:23 AM on May 3, 2017
Not to disparage the computational skills of 14th century tailors but "materials science" both in the thread and loom technology and also metallurgy were probably equally vital, one may visualize a lovely curve but without sharp scissors and quality fabric, it'll be impractical to construct.
posted by sammyo at 6:23 AM on May 3, 2017
I used to service office equipment. One of my accounts was a well-known lingerie company. They did in fact have an engineering department and that is exactly what it was called.
posted by Standeck at 6:34 AM on May 3, 2017 [11 favorites]
posted by Standeck at 6:34 AM on May 3, 2017 [11 favorites]
Perhaps people rarely think about "the engineering of gala gowns" because fashion and engineering have very little in common. To say that fashion is like engineering seems like a bad case of Engineer's Disease.
In this parallel, fashion is architecture. The design still has to get built, however, and that's where the engineering comes in, whether it's fabric or steel.
posted by hippybear at 6:59 AM on May 3, 2017 [6 favorites]
In this parallel, fashion is architecture. The design still has to get built, however, and that's where the engineering comes in, whether it's fabric or steel.
posted by hippybear at 6:59 AM on May 3, 2017 [6 favorites]
They're entirely different processes with entirely different qualifications, purposes, economical structures, social organization... To reduce fashion to engineering is to demolish the difference.
Which is kind of the point of the article/twitter thread. I am an engineer and I worked hard to be where I am today. I do not feel that my work is at all diminished or made less because someone says that someone who designs differently purposed, (maybe) less economically important fashion is also doing engineering. The fact that that you feel the difference is "demolished" and that the qualifications, purpose, economic structure, and social organization of engineering are somehow meaningless if we say that fashion designers do something similar strikes me as taking offense at the frivolity of something which is exactly what the article is arguing against - engineering is not defined as "not frivolous". I mean, come on, I live in San Francisco. Most of the tech industry here wouldn't exist if frivolity were a dealbreaker.
The excitement to say "there's STEM in everything!" is explicitly to show underrepresented groups that there are things that may interest them with STEM applications that the field as traditionally practiced may not make obvious are relevant. I think building bridges and generating power are both boring as fuck. That's not why I'm an engineer. I'm an engineer because someone found the thing that *did* interest me, taught me how STEM is used for it, and it got me really excited. Because frankly, there is STEM in lots of places. Love makeup? Tons of chemistry and materials science behind it. (Should have seen the instagram post a mat sci prof of mine made after her first gel manicure - total geekout) Love art? I have a bunch of hacker engineer friends who work on crazy cool wearable stuff, and there's a robotics company that uses robotic arms to lay tile for mosaics ten times faster than humans can do it (of course human artists have to design the mosaic in the first place). Love cooking and baking? Hello, molecular gastronomy. And yes, if you like fashion, learning some complex geometry, programming, structural engineering, and materials science can help you push the envelope. I don't see that revered STEM fields are at all diminished by pointing this out and encouraging people who like these things but not so much bridges and nuclear reactors to jump on board the STEM train - unless, of course, you are threatened by the fact that traditionally girly stuff requires science and engineering, too. And some people, for some reason, are. Which again, is the point of this twitter thread.
posted by olinerd at 7:34 AM on May 3, 2017 [15 favorites]
Which is kind of the point of the article/twitter thread. I am an engineer and I worked hard to be where I am today. I do not feel that my work is at all diminished or made less because someone says that someone who designs differently purposed, (maybe) less economically important fashion is also doing engineering. The fact that that you feel the difference is "demolished" and that the qualifications, purpose, economic structure, and social organization of engineering are somehow meaningless if we say that fashion designers do something similar strikes me as taking offense at the frivolity of something which is exactly what the article is arguing against - engineering is not defined as "not frivolous". I mean, come on, I live in San Francisco. Most of the tech industry here wouldn't exist if frivolity were a dealbreaker.
The excitement to say "there's STEM in everything!" is explicitly to show underrepresented groups that there are things that may interest them with STEM applications that the field as traditionally practiced may not make obvious are relevant. I think building bridges and generating power are both boring as fuck. That's not why I'm an engineer. I'm an engineer because someone found the thing that *did* interest me, taught me how STEM is used for it, and it got me really excited. Because frankly, there is STEM in lots of places. Love makeup? Tons of chemistry and materials science behind it. (Should have seen the instagram post a mat sci prof of mine made after her first gel manicure - total geekout) Love art? I have a bunch of hacker engineer friends who work on crazy cool wearable stuff, and there's a robotics company that uses robotic arms to lay tile for mosaics ten times faster than humans can do it (of course human artists have to design the mosaic in the first place). Love cooking and baking? Hello, molecular gastronomy. And yes, if you like fashion, learning some complex geometry, programming, structural engineering, and materials science can help you push the envelope. I don't see that revered STEM fields are at all diminished by pointing this out and encouraging people who like these things but not so much bridges and nuclear reactors to jump on board the STEM train - unless, of course, you are threatened by the fact that traditionally girly stuff requires science and engineering, too. And some people, for some reason, are. Which again, is the point of this twitter thread.
posted by olinerd at 7:34 AM on May 3, 2017 [15 favorites]
Not to disparage the computational skills of 14th century tailors but "materials science" both in the thread and loom technology and also metallurgy were probably equally vital, one may visualize a lovely curve but without sharp scissors and quality fabric, it'll be impractical to construct.
Perhaps, but I'm not aware of any fundamental improvements in either weaving technology, metallurgy, or scissors or shears in that same time period.
For example, in Europe the horizontal loom first appeared in the 11th century, representing a substantial improvement over the warp-weighted loom, which had existed since the Bronze Age. But the horizontal loom is mainly a boon to efficiency and the complexity of weaves (e.g. it makes diamond twills much easier), not the quality of fabric in a general sense (e.g. strength or threads per inch).
There were several important developments in textiles during the 14th century (e.g. more importation of silk, different wools due to climate change, ever-increasing emphasis on surface decoration of fabric), but none of those are required for fitted clothing. One can just as well make fitted clothing from rough wool or linen (I own some and have seen it made by hand).
I know less about the history of metallurgy and scissors and shears, but I am not aware of any fundamental improvements there, either. More-or-less modern scissors start to become more common in the 14th century, but one can cleanly cut curves in fabric using spring shears, which are an ancient design.
posted by jedicus at 7:38 AM on May 3, 2017 [3 favorites]
Perhaps, but I'm not aware of any fundamental improvements in either weaving technology, metallurgy, or scissors or shears in that same time period.
For example, in Europe the horizontal loom first appeared in the 11th century, representing a substantial improvement over the warp-weighted loom, which had existed since the Bronze Age. But the horizontal loom is mainly a boon to efficiency and the complexity of weaves (e.g. it makes diamond twills much easier), not the quality of fabric in a general sense (e.g. strength or threads per inch).
There were several important developments in textiles during the 14th century (e.g. more importation of silk, different wools due to climate change, ever-increasing emphasis on surface decoration of fabric), but none of those are required for fitted clothing. One can just as well make fitted clothing from rough wool or linen (I own some and have seen it made by hand).
I know less about the history of metallurgy and scissors and shears, but I am not aware of any fundamental improvements there, either. More-or-less modern scissors start to become more common in the 14th century, but one can cleanly cut curves in fabric using spring shears, which are an ancient design.
posted by jedicus at 7:38 AM on May 3, 2017 [3 favorites]
If it had just been the case that through long years of jamming I'd learned that this fruit won't set unless I squeeze some lemon juice into it, but this other fruit will, and I'd drawn up a list of fruits like that, and that was it, I don't think that would be doing chemistry, because it's too particularized.
If you squint a little, this is a concise description of one of the tasks I have to do on a regular basis as an environmental chemist. We do make lists (we call it a behaviour catalogue) of what certain substances will do when mixed in regular ways, in particular if they will form gels, mouses, following a specific procedure, that is essentially using a recipe. These lists are important because, like fruits, these starting materials have a huge amount of natural variability and so the catalogue give impact modellers and risk (and damage) assessors tools to talk about the environmental impacts of the stuff we study might have, either in it's liquid state or as a "jam".
The scientific method parts come in when we test our intuitions about what make the recipes work, like how the contents of our "fruits", how the steps of the recipe cause the gel to form, so that we can make predictions for other "fruits" and other mixing recipes that we might not be able to test ourselves (there are thousands or more varieties and these are fairly expensive tests). But a lot of chefs do the same, they just have a different test than we do. They want their recipes to work, after all, and what about trying with a new kind of fruit? You're already doing a kind of science when you say to yourself, "I'd bet that jam would work with a bit more lemon juice. I have to try it!"
The blend from craft to science isn't huge---it's mostly about being more precise during recipe development (and understanding what that precision means). It absolutely does start with making your lists though.
posted by bonehead at 7:42 AM on May 3, 2017 [4 favorites]
If you squint a little, this is a concise description of one of the tasks I have to do on a regular basis as an environmental chemist. We do make lists (we call it a behaviour catalogue) of what certain substances will do when mixed in regular ways, in particular if they will form gels, mouses, following a specific procedure, that is essentially using a recipe. These lists are important because, like fruits, these starting materials have a huge amount of natural variability and so the catalogue give impact modellers and risk (and damage) assessors tools to talk about the environmental impacts of the stuff we study might have, either in it's liquid state or as a "jam".
The scientific method parts come in when we test our intuitions about what make the recipes work, like how the contents of our "fruits", how the steps of the recipe cause the gel to form, so that we can make predictions for other "fruits" and other mixing recipes that we might not be able to test ourselves (there are thousands or more varieties and these are fairly expensive tests). But a lot of chefs do the same, they just have a different test than we do. They want their recipes to work, after all, and what about trying with a new kind of fruit? You're already doing a kind of science when you say to yourself, "I'd bet that jam would work with a bit more lemon juice. I have to try it!"
The blend from craft to science isn't huge---it's mostly about being more precise during recipe development (and understanding what that precision means). It absolutely does start with making your lists though.
posted by bonehead at 7:42 AM on May 3, 2017 [4 favorites]
Your fashion design calls for a strapless bust, wide sleeves that devolve into "butterflies" of fabric that will flutter individually as the wearer moves. The bodice will be heavily pleated. The gown will have a columnar skirt, which will give way in the back to a cathedral train, in which the "butterfly" effect will be repeated. It will be made in silk.
What kind of silk do you choose? Organza? Duchesse satin? Crepe-backed satin? Habutai? Dupioni? Crepe de chine? Taffeta? Twill? Chiffon? What characteristics inform your choice, and how do those characteristics affect the construction of your gown? And how is that not engineering?
posted by KathrynT at 7:46 AM on May 3, 2017 [20 favorites]
What kind of silk do you choose? Organza? Duchesse satin? Crepe-backed satin? Habutai? Dupioni? Crepe de chine? Taffeta? Twill? Chiffon? What characteristics inform your choice, and how do those characteristics affect the construction of your gown? And how is that not engineering?
posted by KathrynT at 7:46 AM on May 3, 2017 [20 favorites]
Love makeup? Tons of chemistry and materials science behind it. (Should have seen the instagram post a mat sci prof of mine made after her first gel manicure - total geekout)
Seriously! Modern nail polish emerged from the automotive industry, which deals with similar constraints (strong, flexible, fast-drying, safe). There's a ton of materials science involved in making a workable, removable, fast-drying lacquer or enamel that can evenly coat a curved, flexible surface without easily flaking or chipping off, all while remaining safe to apply to the body and holding a variety of pigments.
It absolutely does start with making your lists though.
As Adam Savage said, "The difference between screwing around and science is writing it down."
posted by jedicus at 7:47 AM on May 3, 2017 [8 favorites]
Seriously! Modern nail polish emerged from the automotive industry, which deals with similar constraints (strong, flexible, fast-drying, safe). There's a ton of materials science involved in making a workable, removable, fast-drying lacquer or enamel that can evenly coat a curved, flexible surface without easily flaking or chipping off, all while remaining safe to apply to the body and holding a variety of pigments.
It absolutely does start with making your lists though.
As Adam Savage said, "The difference between screwing around and science is writing it down."
posted by jedicus at 7:47 AM on May 3, 2017 [8 favorites]
(and publishing it).
posted by bonehead at 7:48 AM on May 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by bonehead at 7:48 AM on May 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
Quoting olinerd for truth:
The excitement to say "there's STEM in everything!" is explicitly to show underrepresented groups that there are things that may interest them with STEM applications that the field as traditionally practiced may not make obvious are relevant.
This is all about showing people who have always been told (or who have been the ones saying) "girls are bad at math and physics and chemistry" that no, girls aren't bad at math or physics or chemistry, because girls have been doing particular branches of math and physics and chemistry for a long time, whatever the terms and mental models they have used.
Also, what many people said: Not all math and engineering start with formulas. I was drawn to electrical engineering because as a little kid I watched my parents design circuits and build them; I didn't know what the little caterpillar-looking things or the colorful grains of rice were; all I understood was that my parents chose these different things, put them together in a specific way, and so whatever they built did whatever they had wanted it to do.
I just said the exact thing KathrynT said, only slotting in different nouns. And I'm damn certain no one will look at a populated printed circuit board and say it's not engineering. So...
posted by seyirci at 8:18 AM on May 3, 2017 [7 favorites]
The excitement to say "there's STEM in everything!" is explicitly to show underrepresented groups that there are things that may interest them with STEM applications that the field as traditionally practiced may not make obvious are relevant.
This is all about showing people who have always been told (or who have been the ones saying) "girls are bad at math and physics and chemistry" that no, girls aren't bad at math or physics or chemistry, because girls have been doing particular branches of math and physics and chemistry for a long time, whatever the terms and mental models they have used.
Also, what many people said: Not all math and engineering start with formulas. I was drawn to electrical engineering because as a little kid I watched my parents design circuits and build them; I didn't know what the little caterpillar-looking things or the colorful grains of rice were; all I understood was that my parents chose these different things, put them together in a specific way, and so whatever they built did whatever they had wanted it to do.
I just said the exact thing KathrynT said, only slotting in different nouns. And I'm damn certain no one will look at a populated printed circuit board and say it's not engineering. So...
posted by seyirci at 8:18 AM on May 3, 2017 [7 favorites]
Also, the joy of a physicist or a mathematician geeking out about things they recognize are applications of their field is a precious thing that needs to be encouraged. See also,
177147 ways to tie a tie.
posted by seyirci at 8:21 AM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
177147 ways to tie a tie.
posted by seyirci at 8:21 AM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
If it had just been the case that through long years of jamming I'd learned that this fruit won't set unless I squeeze some lemon juice into it, but this other fruit will, and I'd drawn up a list of fruits like that, and that was it, I don't think that would be doing chemistry, because it's too particularized.
man I don't know who taught you to make jam but if they did it without explaining basic chemical reactions they did a bad job of it. I grew up in a household that was traditional to the extent that my mother taught me to cook and bake, which is 90 percent explaining what different levels of heat do to different materials, how gluten works, why eggs are a binding ingredient, why sometimes you can undo a mistake by adding more liquids or more flour sometimes you can't, what "overworking" means, how textures are produced, what the physical/chemical function of each ingredient is (which you have to know in order to make any substitutions or improvements at all), why you have to keep proportions constant when you increase amounts, why altitude changes things, why a souffle rises and can fall, how yeast works, what it is, what is proofing, how can you make something rise without yeast AND SO ON.
the other 10 percent was telling me to clean up after myself but that part I ignored.
and I never learned to sew properly because the only thing I hate more than I hate math is having people explain math to me.
I realize not everyone's mother was a computer programmer with engineering experience like mine was, but she learned her household skills long before she got her STEM training. this is just how experienced people teach these skills: through conceptual explanations, not blind spell-following. that's why anybody can follow a recipe, once they learn the terminology, but not everybody is a good cook. I agree with you entirely that it's offensive nonsense to insist that all arts, especially feminine ones, must hide under the STEM umbrella to have worth and dignity. but some of them belong there and always have.
posted by queenofbithynia at 9:22 AM on May 3, 2017 [8 favorites]
man I don't know who taught you to make jam but if they did it without explaining basic chemical reactions they did a bad job of it. I grew up in a household that was traditional to the extent that my mother taught me to cook and bake, which is 90 percent explaining what different levels of heat do to different materials, how gluten works, why eggs are a binding ingredient, why sometimes you can undo a mistake by adding more liquids or more flour sometimes you can't, what "overworking" means, how textures are produced, what the physical/chemical function of each ingredient is (which you have to know in order to make any substitutions or improvements at all), why you have to keep proportions constant when you increase amounts, why altitude changes things, why a souffle rises and can fall, how yeast works, what it is, what is proofing, how can you make something rise without yeast AND SO ON.
the other 10 percent was telling me to clean up after myself but that part I ignored.
and I never learned to sew properly because the only thing I hate more than I hate math is having people explain math to me.
I realize not everyone's mother was a computer programmer with engineering experience like mine was, but she learned her household skills long before she got her STEM training. this is just how experienced people teach these skills: through conceptual explanations, not blind spell-following. that's why anybody can follow a recipe, once they learn the terminology, but not everybody is a good cook. I agree with you entirely that it's offensive nonsense to insist that all arts, especially feminine ones, must hide under the STEM umbrella to have worth and dignity. but some of them belong there and always have.
posted by queenofbithynia at 9:22 AM on May 3, 2017 [8 favorites]
There is a continuum from rule-following through skilled artisanry and trades work through everyday engineering to novel engineering to science. They still aren't the same. It seems to me that blurring them together does each of them a disservice, because they are difficult and useful in very different ways.
posted by clew at 12:03 PM on May 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by clew at 12:03 PM on May 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
The fact that that you feel the difference is "demolished" and that the qualifications, purpose, economic structure, and social organization of engineering are somehow meaningless if we say that fashion designers do something similar strikes me as taking offense at the frivolity of something
Fashion is immense. Culturally it's perhaps the most enduringly interesting and globally influential artform of the past ten or twenty years, where it has been vital in mainstreaming (aspects of) black culture and queer culture. Economically, it is a multi-trillion dollar industry, and one of the few avenues where young folks can hope to secure a career. And as a career -- whether as a model, designer, photographer, makeup artist, hairdresser, stylist, agent, booker, fashion vlogger, or wanna-be -- it's demanding, ruthless, and exhilarating.
So I don't get why you think fashion is frivolous or why you think I would think that. What I think is that they are entirely different disciplines. I think that to compare fashion to engineering diminishes fashion, if for no other reason than by reinforcing the -- myopic and destructive -- notion that nothing has value unless it is computable.
posted by dmh at 12:16 PM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
Fashion is immense. Culturally it's perhaps the most enduringly interesting and globally influential artform of the past ten or twenty years, where it has been vital in mainstreaming (aspects of) black culture and queer culture. Economically, it is a multi-trillion dollar industry, and one of the few avenues where young folks can hope to secure a career. And as a career -- whether as a model, designer, photographer, makeup artist, hairdresser, stylist, agent, booker, fashion vlogger, or wanna-be -- it's demanding, ruthless, and exhilarating.
So I don't get why you think fashion is frivolous or why you think I would think that. What I think is that they are entirely different disciplines. I think that to compare fashion to engineering diminishes fashion, if for no other reason than by reinforcing the -- myopic and destructive -- notion that nothing has value unless it is computable.
posted by dmh at 12:16 PM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
I think that to compare fashion to engineering diminishes fashion, if for no other reason than by reinforcing the -- myopic and destructive -- notion that nothing has value unless it is computable.
To be fair, I think the people in this thread wanting to draw a distinction between engineering and fashion didn't seem to be coming from that place that engineering is better than fashion. I think they thought you could draw a useful distinction without saying one is superior to the other.
But I think in practice when you draw those distinctions (and particularly when the categories you separate things into have gendered associations), it's very common that people will consider one of them superior or more serious or more intellectually rigorous. To the extent to which those judgements are false and driven by sexism, it can end up being overall more truthful to challenge those distinctions and emphasize the similarities between engineering and fashion.
posted by straight at 1:01 PM on May 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
To be fair, I think the people in this thread wanting to draw a distinction between engineering and fashion didn't seem to be coming from that place that engineering is better than fashion. I think they thought you could draw a useful distinction without saying one is superior to the other.
But I think in practice when you draw those distinctions (and particularly when the categories you separate things into have gendered associations), it's very common that people will consider one of them superior or more serious or more intellectually rigorous. To the extent to which those judgements are false and driven by sexism, it can end up being overall more truthful to challenge those distinctions and emphasize the similarities between engineering and fashion.
posted by straight at 1:01 PM on May 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
If you look at the difference in status of physicians in countries where they are mostly male or (like in Russia) mostly female, you might suspect that value judgments like "nothing has value unless it is computable" are driven more by the association of math with men than some inherent superiority of computability over other values.
posted by straight at 1:08 PM on May 3, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by straight at 1:08 PM on May 3, 2017 [5 favorites]
I feel like dismissing the engineering/material science involved in implementing fashion designs - particularly utterly whacked out boundary-pushing stuff like this - is somehow in the same 'dismissive of women' category as the trope that "women can't handle complicated machinery" which conveniently ignores the existence of sewing machines, which are WICKED FUCKING COMPLICATED, particularly before about 30 years ago when we started getting threading assistance and automatic buttonhole making as features.
posted by rmd1023 at 1:13 PM on May 3, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by rmd1023 at 1:13 PM on May 3, 2017 [5 favorites]
So I don't get why you think fashion is frivolous or why you think I would think that. What I think is that they are entirely different disciplines.
Can you answer my questions about the silk, above, in a way that supports your contention?
posted by KathrynT at 3:30 PM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
Can you answer my questions about the silk, above, in a way that supports your contention?
posted by KathrynT at 3:30 PM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
There are a zillion girls who think they're not interested in math or science because they're more interested in learning knitting and sewing (relatively archaic domains) than taking apart an alarm clock. And it's ridiculous. It couldn't be a more arbitrary distinction, except that people will take you seriously if you dedicate your faculties to the inner workings of an alarm clock, but not the inner workings of some glittery pearlescent woman contraption.
Scientists and engineers are quite often born out of a desire to find out how things work or how they're made and to either do that thing or generalize/abstract it. There are plenty of both sorts in most STEM fields. I am a scientist far more than I'm an engineer, but nearly every day I think not only about how my abstract knowledge of science informs my lived experience of the world, but also vice versa.
I know how to use a sewing machine and I know how to project film on a two projector changeover setup. Neither of them is, by itself, engineering, but the physical intuition I've gained from doing both is certainly not nothing. And every time something goes wrong and you fix it, every time you try to do something new and succeed or fail, yeah, you're putting a little engineering in. Anytime you have an intuition about draping a dress properly, you're manipulating a material in concert with your understanding physical principles. My dad never graduated high school, but he can build a deck from scratch because of what he's learned from working on various construction projects lo these 30 years. I don't see a huge difference. And you might not call him an engineer, and I get it, Engineering with a capital E is a different thing, but it's kind of a question of scale more than anything and it's really quite incredible how the human mind yearns to understand the world this way. I don't think it diminishes anything to celebrate that.
I don't know if anyone is actually advocating for the Department of Knitting and Sewing Engineering to be built next to the Neuroscience department. But I think the point is that we forget how much science is developed, understood and communicated both in metaphor and physical intuition, and how on those grounds, the things we dismiss outright as 100% non-technical are a bit strange. Saying that pool players don't use geometry, for instance, is just wrong-- it's a geometry they've probably learned through lived experience of the game of pool, but it's still geometry, and geometry is about mathematical relationships whether you abstract it and write it down with symbols or not. It might not be satisfyingly mathy to you, but it's not not math. Math is not just taking integrals.
Personally, I hate sewing because it requires so much damn familiarity with machines and fabrics, I have no innate predilection for it and it would take me too much practice. But I've seen a lot of kids who haaaaate math suddenly have something click when they relate it to whatever weirdo hobby thing they happen to be into (even if that thing is video games, the color wheel, whatever) to think that there is no significant relationship at all.
Maybe we should call people who sew and knit technicians? And fashion designers garment engineers. I've watched enough fashion reality TV to see how important understanding of fabric principles is to a well-made garment in the world of high fashion.
I mean, even if you don't want to go whole hog with the E-word, we call people who fuck with cars mechanics and we assume correctly that they have an actual skill. They understand motors and often understand more about physics than you'd think. Maybe a mechanic isn't an engineer, but despite the stereotype of the mechanic as a scuzzbucket, we treat it like a legitimate technical area, something which to learn it for the sake of it can only enrich your person. (The Zen of Motorcycle Maintenance, anyone... ? Not a few people people became engineers because of that book! So no, maybe motorcycle maintenance isn't engineering, but it's damn related.)
It's not computation or engineering or STEMminess that makes a hobby worthwhile, but it is the human factor, the skill, the depth, the analytical interest that typically does. I don't like to overstate the case that Art is Science either, but it is seemingly completely arbitrary how we classify these things. Anyone who does a craft well and is inventive at all has at least a little bit of science into it. And it typically does hurt girls and people of color when we act like science is something absolute and there are geniuses who can explain the world to us in a very pat sense. Yes, there are objective conclusions to the study and application of mathematics, but a lot of scientists are fascinated by the human relationship to the daily, physical world and the mystery of what we don't know any why any of this is related to mathematics at all (and the miracle that this thing we can sort of understand just by living can be usefully extended by it!).
Anyway, end of bullshit, this just really gets on my nerves as an girl who studied poetry instead of computers. While I'm endlessly glad that I did, it's baffling to me that my interest in electronics, machines, contraptions of all kinds, and what has generally now evolved into my interest in theoretical physics was not recognized as such because it wasn't coded male enough.
posted by stoneandstar at 7:52 PM on May 3, 2017 [7 favorites]
Scientists and engineers are quite often born out of a desire to find out how things work or how they're made and to either do that thing or generalize/abstract it. There are plenty of both sorts in most STEM fields. I am a scientist far more than I'm an engineer, but nearly every day I think not only about how my abstract knowledge of science informs my lived experience of the world, but also vice versa.
I know how to use a sewing machine and I know how to project film on a two projector changeover setup. Neither of them is, by itself, engineering, but the physical intuition I've gained from doing both is certainly not nothing. And every time something goes wrong and you fix it, every time you try to do something new and succeed or fail, yeah, you're putting a little engineering in. Anytime you have an intuition about draping a dress properly, you're manipulating a material in concert with your understanding physical principles. My dad never graduated high school, but he can build a deck from scratch because of what he's learned from working on various construction projects lo these 30 years. I don't see a huge difference. And you might not call him an engineer, and I get it, Engineering with a capital E is a different thing, but it's kind of a question of scale more than anything and it's really quite incredible how the human mind yearns to understand the world this way. I don't think it diminishes anything to celebrate that.
I don't know if anyone is actually advocating for the Department of Knitting and Sewing Engineering to be built next to the Neuroscience department. But I think the point is that we forget how much science is developed, understood and communicated both in metaphor and physical intuition, and how on those grounds, the things we dismiss outright as 100% non-technical are a bit strange. Saying that pool players don't use geometry, for instance, is just wrong-- it's a geometry they've probably learned through lived experience of the game of pool, but it's still geometry, and geometry is about mathematical relationships whether you abstract it and write it down with symbols or not. It might not be satisfyingly mathy to you, but it's not not math. Math is not just taking integrals.
Personally, I hate sewing because it requires so much damn familiarity with machines and fabrics, I have no innate predilection for it and it would take me too much practice. But I've seen a lot of kids who haaaaate math suddenly have something click when they relate it to whatever weirdo hobby thing they happen to be into (even if that thing is video games, the color wheel, whatever) to think that there is no significant relationship at all.
Maybe we should call people who sew and knit technicians? And fashion designers garment engineers. I've watched enough fashion reality TV to see how important understanding of fabric principles is to a well-made garment in the world of high fashion.
I mean, even if you don't want to go whole hog with the E-word, we call people who fuck with cars mechanics and we assume correctly that they have an actual skill. They understand motors and often understand more about physics than you'd think. Maybe a mechanic isn't an engineer, but despite the stereotype of the mechanic as a scuzzbucket, we treat it like a legitimate technical area, something which to learn it for the sake of it can only enrich your person. (The Zen of Motorcycle Maintenance, anyone... ? Not a few people people became engineers because of that book! So no, maybe motorcycle maintenance isn't engineering, but it's damn related.)
It's not computation or engineering or STEMminess that makes a hobby worthwhile, but it is the human factor, the skill, the depth, the analytical interest that typically does. I don't like to overstate the case that Art is Science either, but it is seemingly completely arbitrary how we classify these things. Anyone who does a craft well and is inventive at all has at least a little bit of science into it. And it typically does hurt girls and people of color when we act like science is something absolute and there are geniuses who can explain the world to us in a very pat sense. Yes, there are objective conclusions to the study and application of mathematics, but a lot of scientists are fascinated by the human relationship to the daily, physical world and the mystery of what we don't know any why any of this is related to mathematics at all (and the miracle that this thing we can sort of understand just by living can be usefully extended by it!).
Anyway, end of bullshit, this just really gets on my nerves as an girl who studied poetry instead of computers. While I'm endlessly glad that I did, it's baffling to me that my interest in electronics, machines, contraptions of all kinds, and what has generally now evolved into my interest in theoretical physics was not recognized as such because it wasn't coded male enough.
posted by stoneandstar at 7:52 PM on May 3, 2017 [7 favorites]
If you look at the difference in status of physicians in countries where they are mostly male or (like in Russia) mostly female, you might suspect that value judgments like "nothing has value unless it is computable" are driven more by the association of math with men than some inherent superiority of computability over other values.
Not sure if it's just me, but the vibe I get in my academic social circles is that being a doctor is about soft biology/anatomy and bedside manner and not science, unless you are a male doctor, in which case you're assumed to be interested in research medicine so then you're very important.
posted by stoneandstar at 7:55 PM on May 3, 2017
Not sure if it's just me, but the vibe I get in my academic social circles is that being a doctor is about soft biology/anatomy and bedside manner and not science, unless you are a male doctor, in which case you're assumed to be interested in research medicine so then you're very important.
posted by stoneandstar at 7:55 PM on May 3, 2017
Also, a lot of this discussion is ignoring the actual content of the article/thread, which is about 1) why aren't girls interested in STEM, oh wait we push them away at every turn by valorizing learning about cars and stigmatizing cooking and sewing and acting like the former has untold layers of complication and the latter is about pressing an on button and poof there's a tutu, and 2) holy shit the fashion at the Met Gala really is complicated engineering, you have to build the fuck out of that shit, and you have to understand a lot about garment construction to do so.
In conclusion, sewing is really fricking hard.
posted by stoneandstar at 7:57 PM on May 3, 2017 [4 favorites]
In conclusion, sewing is really fricking hard.
posted by stoneandstar at 7:57 PM on May 3, 2017 [4 favorites]
So, here's a thing about sewing and my childhood. When my parents got me (adopted as an infant), my mother quit her teaching job and went into full-time housewife mode. Part of being this involved working at the sewing machine. I have pictures of me from the time I was an infant until the about 8 or 9 years old wearing clothes that my mother sewed from Simplicity patterns, or whatever the other big pattern company was.
She learned as she went along, too. My parents took up square dancing when I was about 10, and one of the first things she did was to do matching western shirt/petticoat dress pairs for her and my dad. Making a western shirt is fucking complicated, with the yoke and the pockets and all that. Not to mention what it takes to make a fitted-to-oneself western dress with a skirt that works with petticoats in the right way doing square dancing flourish twirls.
Now, my mother is an amazing direction follower, not terribly creative but very rigorous. And she made more than one critical error mess-ups that meant another trip to the fabric store. But using her time and her growing skill, she kept a family of 4 clothed pretty well until the time when a double income could be reestablished and money could be spent on clothes.
What I learned from watching this while I was growing up -- sewing can be a real money saver, sewing great looking clothes from patterns is really fucking hard, sewing can be an interesting hobby (my mom took up crochet decades ago and makes gender-color-neutral baby afghans for every new baby coming into their church which I think is really frigging awesome).
And I'm not even talking high fashion sculptural items like those at the Met Gala. Sewing is really fricking hard.
posted by hippybear at 2:42 AM on May 4, 2017 [3 favorites]
She learned as she went along, too. My parents took up square dancing when I was about 10, and one of the first things she did was to do matching western shirt/petticoat dress pairs for her and my dad. Making a western shirt is fucking complicated, with the yoke and the pockets and all that. Not to mention what it takes to make a fitted-to-oneself western dress with a skirt that works with petticoats in the right way doing square dancing flourish twirls.
Now, my mother is an amazing direction follower, not terribly creative but very rigorous. And she made more than one critical error mess-ups that meant another trip to the fabric store. But using her time and her growing skill, she kept a family of 4 clothed pretty well until the time when a double income could be reestablished and money could be spent on clothes.
What I learned from watching this while I was growing up -- sewing can be a real money saver, sewing great looking clothes from patterns is really fucking hard, sewing can be an interesting hobby (my mom took up crochet decades ago and makes gender-color-neutral baby afghans for every new baby coming into their church which I think is really frigging awesome).
And I'm not even talking high fashion sculptural items like those at the Met Gala. Sewing is really fricking hard.
posted by hippybear at 2:42 AM on May 4, 2017 [3 favorites]
Hi, I'm a clothing designer, some of the time (I have a degree and everything).
I know how to draft a pattern flat or on a form. Even with draping on a form, you still have to end up with a coherent flat pattern that you can cut out of your 'good' fabric -- you can't just slap some muslin on a dress form and guess where you think the seams should go and expect it to work.
I use math all the time. There are specific mathematical formulas for some things I do, but if I'm doing something unusual, I have to figure out the formula myself. For example: if I have a 34" hip and a 26" waist, and I want to create a full circle skirt with double box pleats, how many 2" pleats will fit evenly around the skirt (do the pleat widths need to be slightly adjusted?) and how many inches wide is the final pattern piece at the top versus the bottom? You can sit down and do the math or use trial and error on a dress form, where you'll still have to correct it when you're done.
I have to calculate dart angles in relation to bust and waist positions, divide the hem sweep by panels and on and on. I have to understand the dynamic shaping that happens when you attach a bias cut piece to a straight-grain piece. I have to understand how and in what direction folds and pleats fall depending on the shape and grainline of my pattern piece. I have to understand what type of seams and shapes work on thin fabric versus thick ones. . .I could go on but you get the idea.
I don't know how you define 'science' or 'engineering' but math and an understanding of fabric is absolutely involved in every step of designing a garment.
posted by ananci at 12:13 AM on May 5, 2017 [11 favorites]
I know how to draft a pattern flat or on a form. Even with draping on a form, you still have to end up with a coherent flat pattern that you can cut out of your 'good' fabric -- you can't just slap some muslin on a dress form and guess where you think the seams should go and expect it to work.
I use math all the time. There are specific mathematical formulas for some things I do, but if I'm doing something unusual, I have to figure out the formula myself. For example: if I have a 34" hip and a 26" waist, and I want to create a full circle skirt with double box pleats, how many 2" pleats will fit evenly around the skirt (do the pleat widths need to be slightly adjusted?) and how many inches wide is the final pattern piece at the top versus the bottom? You can sit down and do the math or use trial and error on a dress form, where you'll still have to correct it when you're done.
I have to calculate dart angles in relation to bust and waist positions, divide the hem sweep by panels and on and on. I have to understand the dynamic shaping that happens when you attach a bias cut piece to a straight-grain piece. I have to understand how and in what direction folds and pleats fall depending on the shape and grainline of my pattern piece. I have to understand what type of seams and shapes work on thin fabric versus thick ones. . .I could go on but you get the idea.
I don't know how you define 'science' or 'engineering' but math and an understanding of fabric is absolutely involved in every step of designing a garment.
posted by ananci at 12:13 AM on May 5, 2017 [11 favorites]
> I use math all the time. There are specific mathematical formulas for some things I do, but if I'm doing something unusual, I have to figure out the formula myself.
This is the core of what an engineer does. Trial and error is equally part of engineering too, anyway, to turn guesses into repeatable relationships (what's the numbers I need to know how to dart with this fabric?). There's other professionalized stuff around that, safety, standardized procedures, quality assurance. The only major social difference is that you're not legally responsible if your dress causes, I don't know, someone to trip and kill themselves somehow. But that's the professional stuff, that's not the technical skills an engineer has to have.
posted by bonehead at 6:17 AM on May 5, 2017 [3 favorites]
This is the core of what an engineer does. Trial and error is equally part of engineering too, anyway, to turn guesses into repeatable relationships (what's the numbers I need to know how to dart with this fabric?). There's other professionalized stuff around that, safety, standardized procedures, quality assurance. The only major social difference is that you're not legally responsible if your dress causes, I don't know, someone to trip and kill themselves somehow. But that's the professional stuff, that's not the technical skills an engineer has to have.
posted by bonehead at 6:17 AM on May 5, 2017 [3 favorites]
It's very bizarre that this thread about an Twitter post on fashion design and construction immediately went to this place about how sewing is just buying a pattern and slapping it together. I get that not everyone is pushing the envelope every time they sew a garment but why do we equate fashion design with patching a pair of jeans? I mean, I know why, we devalue the professional field because it's perceived as artsy/feminine/frivolous/homemaking. But the idea that fashion designers (like the type who make those Met Gala gowns) are just cutting out patterns... where do you think the patterns come from... ? Oh, I'll just pick up one of those pre-measured avant garde McCall patterns from Michael's on the way to work. You know.
Not that home seamstresses or non-professional seamstresses don't also make calculations and understand fabric but it's like if we were talking about structural engineering or architectural design and someone said "eh, it's like building a treehouse, my husband does that, it's just a ruler and a saw."
posted by stoneandstar at 2:07 PM on May 5, 2017 [3 favorites]
Not that home seamstresses or non-professional seamstresses don't also make calculations and understand fabric but it's like if we were talking about structural engineering or architectural design and someone said "eh, it's like building a treehouse, my husband does that, it's just a ruler and a saw."
posted by stoneandstar at 2:07 PM on May 5, 2017 [3 favorites]
Can you answer my questions about the silk, above, in a way that supports your contention?
So, I choose Habutai. Perhaps it's not the right choice and the garment falls apart, or worse: it looks bad. Then what risk ensues? What are the standards that determine whether the risk was acceptable? What claim do you, as the buyer, have against the creator? Who will insure you, as the creator, for those claims and what determines that? All of these things come into play when you engineer "bridges, buildings, ball bearings, and machines". Let me turn the question around. Why is this not the case for fashion?
posted by dmh at 6:36 PM on May 5, 2017
So, I choose Habutai. Perhaps it's not the right choice and the garment falls apart, or worse: it looks bad. Then what risk ensues? What are the standards that determine whether the risk was acceptable? What claim do you, as the buyer, have against the creator? Who will insure you, as the creator, for those claims and what determines that? All of these things come into play when you engineer "bridges, buildings, ball bearings, and machines". Let me turn the question around. Why is this not the case for fashion?
posted by dmh at 6:36 PM on May 5, 2017
Let me turn the question around. Why is this not the case for fashion? Because no one is going to plunge 60 feet down into the ocean and die if your dress looks bad.
You wouldn't expect your neighborhood handyman to be able to build a complex bridge structure that will last for generations, you go to (duh) a structural engineer or an architect who's studied that skill set. The same goes for home sewing versus haute couture.
Part of what you're paying for in a high-end gown is a)superior knowledge of fabric and cut so that it will NOT look bad or fall apart and b)custom tailoring to make damn SURE it looks amazing and lasts forever (or as forever as fabric can get).
Most haute couture clothing is made for one specific person: either the end client or the model that will wear it in a runway show. That garment will be painstakingly adjusted and fit so that it is perfect.
posted by ananci at 7:26 PM on May 5, 2017 [2 favorites]
You wouldn't expect your neighborhood handyman to be able to build a complex bridge structure that will last for generations, you go to (duh) a structural engineer or an architect who's studied that skill set. The same goes for home sewing versus haute couture.
Part of what you're paying for in a high-end gown is a)superior knowledge of fabric and cut so that it will NOT look bad or fall apart and b)custom tailoring to make damn SURE it looks amazing and lasts forever (or as forever as fabric can get).
Most haute couture clothing is made for one specific person: either the end client or the model that will wear it in a runway show. That garment will be painstakingly adjusted and fit so that it is perfect.
posted by ananci at 7:26 PM on May 5, 2017 [2 favorites]
Because no one is going to plunge 60 feet down into the ocean and die if your dress looks bad.
Yeah, but that's why I think engineering and fashion are completely different disciplines.
posted by dmh at 3:21 AM on May 6, 2017
Yeah, but that's why I think engineering and fashion are completely different disciplines.
posted by dmh at 3:21 AM on May 6, 2017
I guess that last comment isn't the most productive contribution to the conversation, so I would like to be so forward as to expand on it a little. I'm not a professional, but I appreciate fashion and I know a couple of designers. Whether designing runway or retail, there's just no limit to the things they have to consider in terms of material, cost, fit, durability, ... It takes a tremendous amount of skill to do well and it's interesting and important to consider the engineering aspects.
But within the larger context of the underrepresentation of women in STEM, I don't think that observing that fashion also involves engineering helps to rectify that imbalance. It's not about knowledge, skill, or rigor, but about the fact that engineering is an instrumental element of the power structures that shape the world. To do engineering, to be an engineer, means to be part of that power structure. This is what makes it fundamentally different from fashion -- even as fashion also exercises power or influence in its own way.
posted by dmh at 5:32 AM on May 6, 2017
But within the larger context of the underrepresentation of women in STEM, I don't think that observing that fashion also involves engineering helps to rectify that imbalance. It's not about knowledge, skill, or rigor, but about the fact that engineering is an instrumental element of the power structures that shape the world. To do engineering, to be an engineer, means to be part of that power structure. This is what makes it fundamentally different from fashion -- even as fashion also exercises power or influence in its own way.
posted by dmh at 5:32 AM on May 6, 2017
Software 'engineering', for the most part, isn't done in a way that would keep people from plunging 60' into the ocean and drowning either. Or even in a way that keeps a major social media platform from crashing because they used 'y' vs 'Y'. But while there are some small number of folks arguing that software engineering isn't actually engineering, somehow fashion is getting more folks pushing back on it.
posted by rmd1023 at 7:17 AM on May 6, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by rmd1023 at 7:17 AM on May 6, 2017 [6 favorites]
So, I choose Habutai.
Why? Defend your answer.
posted by KathrynT at 7:32 AM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]
Why? Defend your answer.
posted by KathrynT at 7:32 AM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]
Jesus I can't remember the last time the comments were so didn't RTFA and mansplainy. Really interesting subject and I'm glad the rest of y'all put up with it to add some interesting insights.
posted by DynamiteToast at 7:31 AM on May 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by DynamiteToast at 7:31 AM on May 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
I have no idea why people are 1) not RTFA and 2) taking this so insanely literally.
I mean, engineers participate in a power structure, yes. I doubt many of them feel their work is totally their own, or that they can express ownership of any particular power, or that their contribution is not in some way fungible. At least designers of haute couture are by definition irreplaceable. And how do they not participate in a power structure-- fashion is an insanely elite and profitable enterprise! It absolutely shapes the world. The distinction you're making doesn't exist except in the details of "I helped design a bridge with some other people and some of my suggestions were used and some were not" versus "I designed a garment that inspired what many women are wearing some version of on the street today or what celebrities are wearing to some of the most popular cultural events in our time." Fashion exerts tremendous economic power. The founder of Zara is one of the richest men in the world. The greatest fashion designers are as iconic as the greatest architects and have similar power and influence over the way our world works and appears.
Saying that fashion has some kind of lesser influence is kind of insane. It's one thing to personally believe that telling girls fashion is engineering won't empower them, but another to downplay the power dynamics in fashion because they are too feminine to matter.
posted by stoneandstar at 10:08 PM on May 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
I mean, engineers participate in a power structure, yes. I doubt many of them feel their work is totally their own, or that they can express ownership of any particular power, or that their contribution is not in some way fungible. At least designers of haute couture are by definition irreplaceable. And how do they not participate in a power structure-- fashion is an insanely elite and profitable enterprise! It absolutely shapes the world. The distinction you're making doesn't exist except in the details of "I helped design a bridge with some other people and some of my suggestions were used and some were not" versus "I designed a garment that inspired what many women are wearing some version of on the street today or what celebrities are wearing to some of the most popular cultural events in our time." Fashion exerts tremendous economic power. The founder of Zara is one of the richest men in the world. The greatest fashion designers are as iconic as the greatest architects and have similar power and influence over the way our world works and appears.
Saying that fashion has some kind of lesser influence is kind of insane. It's one thing to personally believe that telling girls fashion is engineering won't empower them, but another to downplay the power dynamics in fashion because they are too feminine to matter.
posted by stoneandstar at 10:08 PM on May 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
Yeah, but that's why I think engineering and fashion are completely different disciplines.
I agree, bridge engineers and fashion are completely different disciplines.
posted by ananci at 1:47 PM on May 11, 2017 [2 favorites]
I agree, bridge engineers and fashion are completely different disciplines.
posted by ananci at 1:47 PM on May 11, 2017 [2 favorites]
« Older i like the part where he steps over the obstacle | Top dog. Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
I'm sure that a soufflé, or even a loaf of bread, looked at in the right way, is a marvel of structural engineering; this doesn't make the baker an engineer or someone interested in engineering. AFAICT from the linked piece and twitter thread, it's similar with the designers, patternmakers, etc., being pointed up. If any of them are applying engineering principles to realizing the design, that would be interesting to know! If any of them are applying engineering principles to coming up with the designs in the first place, that too would be interesting to know. And lord knows designers can and do perform research in the furtherance of their work.
If the point of a sentence like this: "From the geometry of the oblong petals to the tensile strength of the straps holding on her gladiator heels, the entire ensemble is a complex affair I’m happy to admire without calculating out the math that makes it possible" is that beneath nearly any object is a morass of complicated math, physics, and engineering, which those acquainted with the subjects will be able to appreciate in a way that others won't—sure, fine, though, indeed, lots of stuff will qualify. If the point is to suggest that the people who made Rihanna's gown are mathematicians, that strikes me as bizarre. To me saying that women are interested in Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry because cowls are cut as rectangles is like saying that they're interested in gastroenterology because, well, they eat, don't they? (On twitter she says basically that: "Fashion designers are stealth engineers using way more math & physics than they let on." What does this mean? They use similar tools as someone designing and building a bridge? That's super interesting and I'd like to know more about it—but you don't get there from the artifacts.)
* this means something contentious and unargued-for is coming down the pike
posted by kenko at 7:48 PM on May 2, 2017 [10 favorites]