AMFI DenimMinor X KingsOfIndigo
In the Denim Minor at Amsterdam Fashion Institute it is about making a subbrand or clothing label for an already existing denim brand. In a group of six containing all disciplines design, management and branding, you’ll get the experience of developing a small capsule collection and branding them.
The subbrand will not be putten on the market but will be presented to the mother brand you worked these twenty weeks for. To show them a opportunity they could focus on or broaden their insight to the market.
KOI-Ze
Starting with research to the parentbrand Kings Of Indigo to find its strength and opportunities we went into market- plus street research. All eventually to discover which gap the subbrand could help the KOI focus on. Eventually we took the sustainability part and the whimsical way of telling the importance of this into our subbrand. As this is really a strength of the KOI.
With our subbrand we would actually target more on a youth culture as we recognised that Kings Of Indigo got more of attention of people in the age between 35 and 50 years. Instead of the younger target group their aiming on in their communication.
Therefor we chose Generation Z as our main target group. A genaration that grows up with all new kind of issues which is mainly communicated in a digital environment. Out of the contemporary issues we took the non-binary aspect as only one percent of the collection of KOI is focussed on this and which is a great opportunity.
To put all of this in a story format we took 60 sci fi as starting point and took a muze out of this era: Ziggy Stardust. This non binary persona was created by David Bowie after seeing the movie A Space Oddity of Stanley Kubrick. The mission of Ziggy was to tell the people they only had five years left to live, which is kind of a same story people are telling now if we would continue this way.
But all of this story telling didn’t bring a real garment to refer to in our design process. As we wanted it to be a functional garment for a new generation we eventually ended up to take the space suit as element to make it a wrap. Luckily we have a Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers who’s space suit was shown at a exposition, so we could actually research it from close by.
After having all these elements we still needed a name to that would differ us from the parentbrand but still had a connotation to it. This we found in the non-binary element as it is not focussing on a he, she or it. But on a non boxed person which is called a Ze. As it also a small reference to the generation it is focussed on it became KOI-Ze.
Visual Research and Concept Development
Research on André Kuipers Spacesuit
Development
At design we were responsible for researching fit/construction, putting on details and develop a washing. This is done by trial and error of making the patterns ourselves and stitch prototypes. Discuss the fabric, fit and think about all elements that are on the jeans.
Eventually when we had the big picture standing we made a tech pack and it was sourced out to Eroglu, Turkey. Where they made one sample where we could make comments on when visiting them. And after we would get a final salesmen sample with.
While they in Turkey would work on those jeans, we got to think about the big picture to make it a full outfit. By having the spacesuit as influential element we made it ourselves pretty tough to choose which elements to take.
Eventually I was responsible for a fully reversible denim jacket that had the typical 3D seaming of the spacesuit in the sleeves. Therefor we used the Lectra CadCam program in combination with the CLO3D engine. As we were the "guinea-pigs" for developing it in this way, it was all trial and error, but learned a lot from it.
Trim Development
Jeans are mostly a five pocket garment made of a denim. But for a denim designer there just the fun part starts. By putting in certain small details, mostly referring to the inventor of the jeans: Levi's, they distinguish themselves from others, the so called trims.
We had to rethink our use of trims twice because of the sustainablility factor. Now 1/3rd of the jeans gets thrown away because it contains the metal parts of buttons and rivets. So all trims needed to be easy detachable.
For the hook-adjuster we got inspired by the spacesuit and developed our own KOI-Ze hook-adjuster. To prototype it we 3D printed it with a 3D printer for use at home. And the eventual pieces are made with an industrial nylon printer. To give it the professional outlook it needs.
By developing it in such a way company's can shorten lead- and development time by tackling faults in a early stage. And it also will cost less as there don't have to be molds made in the development stage.
We also got in contact with YKK for their screw buttons. A button that can simply be taken by screwing it off. These we personalised as well by putting 3D printed button caps on it, to give it more a 3 dimensional feel and desire to take them into next garments.
As we have modular pieces that can be taken on and off we needed to think about how to de- and re-attach them. And how to prevent our customer to mix up the right and left leg. We found the answer on this at the space shuttle. Where color coding is used to communicate which liquid is going through the tube and if they are hot or freezing. This inspired us to make a colorcoding system so the wearer only needs to attach color.
The alien federation who are on a mission to help planets closed a deal with Kings Of Indigo who now serves as the vehicle to show the planet how waste is the ultimate ingredient for creative solutions. The reduction of unnecessary human concepts such as gender could reincarnate our once supreme earth. This is when the great planet KOI-Ze was born.
Branding Story
Intelligent alien civilisations have been preventing interaction with earth because of the needless overproduction of mankind that menaced the fate of the existence of our planet.
Aliens who communicate cooperatively through intergalactic messages have been observing earth for years. Kings Of Indigo is taking the first step to action in heading towards a more responsible commonalty and resist the ghastly sequel for the planet that humankind is currently facing.
Full credits for this video go to Zoë Akihary:
Photoshoot,& Brand Presentation
ProcessBook
The Denim Minor is a reality-school project which means we still need to document all our steps along the way. As I have a very product development focussed mindset with communication on boards on the wall , as learned in the industry, I don’t like the documentation part that much. But as we get graded on it for it, it still needs to get done...
Where I normally just put process just in folder with some tabs between it, I chose this time for a more cleaner way of presenting. By arranging everything digitally in a format, that connects with my portfolio, I was better able to see what the workload every week was. And see it eventually as added value to put some process in my portfolio, which before mostly consisted end products.