Mass customisation “can be the long term
of vogue,” says Knyttan co-founder
Dezeen and MINI Frontiers: Ben Alun-Jones of Knyttan explains how consumers can generate bespoke knitwear at the company’s “factory of the long term” and claims mass customisation is transforming the position of designers (+ movie).
Knyttan’s “factory of the future” at Somerset House
Knyttan, which Alun-Jones co-founded with Kirsty Emery and Hal Watts in 2013, offers the opportunity to customise a jumper or scarf layout through a internet app, and have it made to order at the company’s factory and shop at Somerset Home in London.
Knyttan web site featuring “style guidebook” by Kate Moross
Knyttan works with a selection of diverse designers to generate “design guides” that buyers can then customise via the app to make bespoke pieces. Uk graphic designer Kate Moross, for example, produced a assortment of geometric patterns for the brand, which customers can manipulate in different techniques to create practically limitless variations.
“You can move close to to your favourite portion of the image, you can zoom in to a piece of detail that you genuinely like and you can say, ‘I want it in this diverse colourway,'” Alun-Jones explains in the movie. “This generates a entirely different piece virtually every single time.”
Jumper by Knyttan
Alun-Jones says that while fashion has traditionally been reluctant to embrace new technological innovation, the good results of the shop is forcing the business to take mass customisation critically.
“Now we’ve made the shop and we have shown how it can operate, it is totally changed the conversation,” he says. “Men and women realise and really comprehend how this can be the long term of vogue.”
Scarf by Knyttan
This will have a big affect on the way designers function, Alun-Jones claims.
“Designers are now starting up to set type guides rather than completed pieces,” he says. “So that’s the provocation for designers: what are the crucial issues for your brand and what are the things you happen to be ready to allow go of?”
Model wearing a scarf by Knyttan
He believes the shake-up will affect designers at all amounts throughout the market.
“Even although [top vogue designers] like Karl Lagerfeld or Vivienne Westwood have very stringent controls in excess of how their brand looks, they’re also searching to generate anything new for their customers,” he says.
Knitting machine at Knyttan’s store in London
Knyttan makes use of regular industrial knitting machines, which Alun-Jones claims “make about 20 to 25 per cent of the world’s clothes.” The important to producing them suitable for mass customisation lies in the computer software.
“The cause [mass customisation] hasn’t took place just before in knitwear is that the design and style equipment that exist are very old fashioned, nearly like 1980s, 1990s-fashion CAD,” Alun-Jones explains. “We have created a new piece of software that enables us to make at one particular minute a red and blue jumper and the next minute a green and white scarf and it just comes out in a movement of entirely different products.”
He adds: “It is turning these mass-production machines into a exclusive production method.”
Spools of merino wool utilized by Knyttan to make bespoke knitwear
The machines can generate a scarf in much less than half an hour, whilst jumpers – which are knitted in several pieces and then stitched collectively – take less than two hours to knit.
“Clients can come either to the Knyttan store right here in Somerset Residence or they can go online [to spot an purchase],” Alun-Jones explains. “After a buyer has positioned their purchase it really is converted to the machine code in a matter of minutes. A scarf requires twenty minutes to manufacture. A jumper requires about an hour and a half and these are prepared for you to acquire.”
Ben Alun-Jones of Knyttan
This movie was filmed at Kyttan’s store at Somerset Property in London. The music is by United kingdom producer 800xL.
Dezeen and MINI Frontiers is a year-lengthy collaboration with MINI exploring how design and technology are coming together to form the future.
