Dezeen Magazine

Sweatshirt by The T-Shirt Issue appears to melt

Berlin collective The T-Shirt Issue has sliced up jersey fabric to create four faceted garments that capture stages of a sweatshirt melting into the ground (+ slideshow).

Sweatshirt that appears to melt by The T-Shirt Issue

Hande Akcayli, Murat Kocyigit and Rozi Rexhepi of the The T-Shirt Issue deconstruct the everyday garment into new forms.

"Our approach is to take an incredibly common object like a T-shirt and break it into its smallest meaningful elements to build a new piece free from the strictures of the original," they said.

Sweatshirt that appears to melt by The T-Shirt Issue

Their latest project, Melt, takes a long-sleeved sweatshirt and breaks it down in four stages until it becomes a flat puddle of jersey.

Starting with an easily recognisable faceted form, each subsequent piece is more crumpled and folded as if it has melted.

Sweatshirt that appears to melt by The T-Shirt Issue

The sleeves merge with the body of the top and the hem splays outward until it becomes horizontally flat.

"With Melt we shape and deconstruct the ego in real life," said the designers. "Each polygon stands for a different facet of the persona, symbolising the process of development, connected through personal experience. With each step, the ego increasingly lets go of social structures and self-centredness. What remains is a melting pot of possibility."

Sweatshirt that appears to melts by The T-Shirt Issue

To create the designs, high resolution 3D scans of a sweatshirt were reduced to just 360 polygons and the creases where the shapes met were exaggerated.

A 3D animation tool was used to morph the shape into three more forms, reducing the amount of polygons each time.

Sweatshirt that appears to melt by The T-Shirt Issue
Data visuals showing the four stages of the sweatshirt "melting" in elevation

Jersey fabric was then laser cut using a card pattern and sewn together, stiffened with thick paper on the inside to keep the forms rigid.

Melt will be installed at Gallery R'Pure during New York Fashion Week, from 6 February at 7pm.

Sweatshirt that appears to melt by The T-Shirt Issue
Data visuals showing the four stages of the sweatshirt "melting" in plan

We featured more designs by The T-Shirt Issue created using human body scans to create sewing patterns in 2008 and included the project in our Dezeen Book of Ideas.

Sweatshirt that appears to melt by The T-Shirt Issue
Rendered data visuals showing the four stages of the sweatshirt "melting"