Bio

Louise Boase is a Finalist of the Redress Design Award 2024. She is studying Fashion Design at Curtin University, Australia.

“My goal is to shift overconsumption habits by convincing consumers that clothing should offer them more. Clothing should have meaning, adaptability, functionality, and a resonating personality.” – Louise Boase

Louise was also a Semi-finalist in 2022.

redress Design Award Collection

Louise’s Redress Design Award collection, ‘DISSECT’, explores pulling things apart, examining with playful curiosity, and reconfiguring whilst honouring origin. The collection features modular garments that offer versatility with multiple ways of wearing, and uses textile waste made from 100% natural fibres, avoiding synthetics and thereby avoiding microplastic pollution. Damaged mining pants are de-branded and reconstructed into new styles whilst maintaining their existing strong features. All prints are etched digitally with laser, minimising dye and energy waste.

Q&A WITH THE DESIGNER

1. Who or what inspired you to pursue sustainable fashion, and inspired the creativity behind your Redress Design Award collection?

Growing up, my dad would take me and my sister to the landfill. Though it smelled awful, it was also magical because we could discover all this great stuff people were throwing out. We would collect them and create new things, like a go-cart. One time we made a decently functioning shower for our tree house. This was how I got into sustainability, but I specifically chose to pursue it in fashion because I love how it’s a movable artform that people display on their bodies, like walking exhibitions.

My collection ‘Dissect’ is driven by my desire to showcase the beauty and potential of waste — as that old landfill showed me — and by the desire to create that meaningful, wearable artform that people would proudly choose to exhibit on their body.

2. What makes your Redress Design Award collection uniquely sustainable? (considering sustainable design techniques you have used in your collection, e.g. zero-waste, upcycling, reconstruction; or waste sources you have chosen)

The pattern prints in the collection are designed to align with each seam and dart, creating a seamless display of art that wraps around the body uninterrupted. This attention to detail can lend itself to longevity, allowing the wearer to appreciate and keep the garments for longer.

Laser engraving is also applied to create non-additive prints, with organic water-based inks for screen printing. Besides zero-waste patterning, I’ve also upcycled without creating waste, braiding all leftover scraps, a simple method that can be scaled up in manufacturing. In addition, I chose repeatable waste sources, such as unwanted mining jeans, which are abundant in my Australian state.

3. What is your career dream or goal? How do you see yourself developing in sustainable fashion in the future?

For the near future, I’d like to try out different projects and expand my knowledge and skills. For the distant future, I love the idea of having my own warehouse or manufacturing space, filled with different technologies that would help scale my ability to tackle waste and create meaningful pieces to sell in a wholesale and/or made-to-order model.

Currently, my goal is to develop my modularity design skills so that in the future I’m able to create highly engineered, changeable pieces. Such designs can inspire consumers to buy investment pieces that offer them more value, while reducing waste by utilising waste materials.

4. As a sustainable fashion designer, what is one item you must always keep with you?

My computer. Since my design approach is very digital, it’s a huge asset when it comes to upcycling. With a computer, I love how you can really play with a range of ideas in a short amount of time before ever actually cutting into unique unwanted garments, which are often hard to find again.

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