Dutch designer Vera de Pont on making fashion sustainable and DIY

She believes fashion could be downloadable and open source where designers become facilitators that guide the customer instead of being in control.

Dutch designer Vera de Pont is studying a master’s in future fashion and her work spans both fantasy and reality. At Design Indaba Conference 2016 she shared a project where she created a cut-out coat that the buyer could buy and then create at home themselves without the need for any sewing. The piece is called Pop Up and comes in several versions, all made using melting yarns that prevent the fabric from fraying at the edges. 

Watch our interview with Vera de Pont.

She believes that one day fashion could be downloadable and open source, and where designers become facilitators that guide the customer instead of being in control of the whole process and has created a manifesto that outlines how she thinks the fashion industry could change. 

De Pont had noticed that for a single t-shirt there were at least seven steps in the process that involved the material moving in between countries and factories. In her pieces she aims to eliminate some of those steps and bring the production into a much more local sphere.