Designer Profile: Dr Manel Torres

Dr Manel Torres is a Spanish fashion designer and academic visitor at Imperials, where he leads the interdisciplinary initiative to produce novel, instant materials for designers, enabling them to create garments in completely new ways. 

His work began with a prototype fabric made from cotton fibers sprayed with paint, but realising the need for a more formal scientific input, he turned for advice to Imperial. Here he met Professor Paul Luckham, of Chemical Engineering, who became Manel's PhD supervisor. 

The Fabrican Spray-on fabric consists of short fibbers that are combined with polymers to bind the fibers together, and a solvent that delivers the fabric in liquid form and evaporates when the spray when it reaches a surface. The spray can be applied using a high pressure spray gun or an aerosol can. The texture of the fabric can be changed according to what fibers are used such as wool, linen or acrylic, and how the spray is layered.

Fabrican spray-on fabric will allow designers to create new and unique garments, this will enable people to personalise their clothes in all sorts of combinations. In addition to new ideas for fashion, the technology offers sprayable material for any application requiring a fabric coating.  After years of research, this futuristic vision is taking shape. The technology enables designers to spray liquid material directly onto the body, using aerosol technology, which dries instantly to make innovative clothes that can be washed and re-worn.

Dr Manel Torres, unveiled his 2011 Spring/Summer Collection at the Science in Style Fashion Show. Dr Torres drew his inspiration for the collection from the statue of Queen Victoria in the College’s Exhibition entrance, and the crinolines that defined the shape of  dresses from the Victorian era. The collection also reflected the architectural shapes and silhouettes of iconic buildings from around the world including Spain’s Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Gehry, and the Gherkin in London, designed by Norman Foster.

Fashion is just one of the uses of this technology. Dr Torres has set up the spin-out company Fabrican Ltd with Professor Luckham to explore other applications, such as medicine patches and bandages, hygiene wipes, air fresheners and upholstery for furniture and cars.

1960's Magazines

I went into the magazine store we have in university to take a look at some primary research from the 1960's although there was only three magazines from the 60's I could find, they were in fact really helpful.

I looked at a general womans magazine at the time, which had some articles in it which really shocked me to see, as to one about taking the contraception pill when it first cam in, and the awareness in checking yourselves for breast cancer. This is not something I expected to see in a magazine from the sixties but it gives you an idea as to what the decade was like.

I also photographed and documented a textile magazine, which had some really interesting knit patterns init and tips for doing things yourself, which I can imagine would have been very popular as they were in a depression after the war. Where as the fashion magazine had the look and feel of a regular magazine, I enjoyed looking at the images of fashion shoots and popular designers of the times.

Key designers that came apparent were:

Mary Quant

Marcel Fenez

Barbara Hulanicki

Kurt Geiger

Maurice of Modern

Etam

Below are some of the strong imagery I collected from the magazines that I felt were very influential.

Introduction into module and beginnings of research.

The first lesson was really good, the power point gave us an idea as to how this module relates to marketing and what is going to be asked from us.  As I have been asked to present a power point about the 1960's in a group next week, I have began some research beginning with the library to get a grasp on the era.

Below is some of the images I collected to get a general feel of the era from a book called sixties design by Philippe Garner:

Op art carpet designed by Antonio Boggeri

Hair style by Vidal Sassoon

Braun "Audio 1" record player, designed by Dieter Rams 

Astronaut Edwin A. Aldrin on the Apollo 11 mission 

Space-age fashion from Andre Courreges 

"A is for Apple", poster designed by The Fool 

I then had a look at the initial shapes of the clothes in a book by John Peacock to get an idea how they evolved throughout the era:

1960 Evening Wear

Day Wear 1961

Day Wear 1963

Day Wear 1961

Day Wear 1963

1966 Evening Wear 

Sports and Leisure Wear 1969

I then decided to go in to a vintage store to get an idea for fucher resources, and managed to take some photographs of some of the items they have on offer. I will definitely visit this shop again and others like it for primary research. I plan to attempt to take photographs of 1960's items next week.