With all the similarities, metal and fabric do have their differences.
A contrasting look at metal and cloth following up from last week.
If you missed last week’s news letter, you can read my blog post about how metal and cloth are similar.
I warned told you that this week I would be writing about how metal and cloth are different. Yes, there are some obvious things — metal is made out of things like steel, gold, silver, copper, aluminum, and tin. Cloth is made out of things like hemp, cotton, silk, flax, wool, and various plastics. But, sometimes, even cloth is woven with metal, for example, lamé.
But when a person is thinking about making a dress out of either metal or fabric, here are some of the considerations the need to be resolved when using metal:
- Pins aren’t a good option for holding together two pieces of metal while being sewn together.
- Repeatedly folding/unfolding or otherwise repeatedly shaping the metal causes fatigue which can cause the metal to break.
- One of the awesome characteristics of metal is that it is heat- and electrically-conductive. This is not necessarily a desired characteristic in garments.
- Coloring the metal is almost always a surface treatment that can easily be scratched or marred.
- Metal is stiff and, while it might have a nice drape, it doesn’t have a graceful flow.
- Generally speaking, getting a piece of metal to drape in a particular way can be very challenging. On the plus side, once it’s there, it’s very likely to stay there.
Why am I going on about making garments using metal? I have a plan. I’ll talk about that next week.
Cheers.
P.S. Wednesday seems to be my writing day so my publishing day, going forward will be Thursday.