Fractal Pied de Poule (houndstooth) Spring/Summer '15 is a collection consisting of a body, a jacket and a parka. The last two will be shown here. Algorithms, new materials, digital prototyping, drapability, tessellations and fractals are recurring themes in our projects. The body, the jacket and the coat are based on an innovative fractal pied de poule (houndstooth) pattern which consists of a single line without intersections. We find the difference in background between Toeters (fashion, fashion-technology, textile innovation) and Feijs (electronics, software, mathematics) fruitful and our cooperation leads to more interesting art and design works than would be possible inside a single discipline.
Artworks
Fractal Pied de Poule (houndstooth) Collection SS'15: Parka
95 x 50 x 1 cm
Lasercut multilayer woven polyester fabric. Model Renata van Putten. Photo Brian Smeulders.
In fashion is pied de poule an important cultural phenomenon. Made famous by Dior, it is still very much alive on today's catwalks. In our earlier mathematical analysis of the classical Pied de Poule pattern (Bridges '12) and the invention of a fractal version of it (Bridges '13) we found pied de poule to be an interesting mathematical phenomenon too. In 2014 we presented an innovative line fractal at Bridges (inspired by warp knitting) for which we found turtle graphics to be a useful tool. So at some point we asked ourselves whether it would be possible to construct a line fractal for pied de poule and after some puzzling answered the question positively. We made a mini-collection to show this.
Fractal Pied de Poule (houndstooth) Collection SS'15: Jacket
63 x 50 x 1 cm
Lasercut multilayer woven polyester fabric. Model Renata van Putten. Photo Brian Smeulders.
Each figure consists of a single line which does not cross itself. The solution works for all pied de poule types (N = 1,2,3,...). It is a remarkable feature of this construction that the figure rotates by 45 degrees at level n-1, by 90 degrees at n-2 and so on (n is recursion level). The line (almost) touches at certain points, but is tweaked to become one long non-intersecting line. The fractal dimensions are comparable to those of the earlier Cantor-dust inspired fractals (Bridges 2012). Each pied-de-poule figure is an engraved line of about 25 meter, compressed by the recursive zigzagging. The Trotec Speedy 300 laser cutter had to run many hours to engrave all parts. We thank Jun Hu, Chet Bangaru and Jasper Sterk for their support.
