Re-Imagining Garment Cutting Waste though the Power of Negative Spaces

The fashion industry generates a substantial amount of textile waste, accounting for 10-15% of the total fabric used solely during the garment cutting stage [1]. These offcuts are typically regarded as useless residues, but they can be reimagined as valuable resources for creating new products through an innovative approach that combines Otto von Busch’s theory of fashion hacking [2] with the zero-waste design principles discussed by Timo Rissanen and Holly McQuillan [3], particularly as a tool for optimizing the cutting process. This contribution seeks to explore the application of the zero-waste design approach in fashion, specifically focusing on the offcuts from the cutting stage, referred to here as the “negative spaces” of both the pattern and the cut garment. The aim is to introduce a new perspective that views textile waste generated during the cutting process as “negative spaces”—“containers,” according to artist Marion Baruch, interviewed by Torres [4]—that are rich in value and meaning. Instead of being discarded, these offcuts can be transformed into new textile products for the fashion industry or related sectors. In this context, the designer becomes a “transmuter” of waste, imbuing it with economic, social, cultural, and productive value through hacking operations within the design process. Waste material is thus interpreted with a renewed sensitivity, enabling us to discern “the various visible and invisible components of the cosmos” and to reshape and revalue “the remnants of something we no longer need or want in our lives” [5, p.6].