When fashion designer Jef Montes couldn't find what he was looking for in the TextielLab’s yarn collection, he developed Adaptive Archi-Filament, a new yarn that changes shape when it comes into contact with water. With Judith Peskens, he wove 42 dresses with the yarn. They all started out as squares of material; the rain then tailored each one.
With the help of chemists, technicians and product developers from the Spanish textile institute Aitex, Montes developed Adaptive Archi-Filament. The signature elastic yarn is made, among other things, from recycled plastic from the sea which is ‘frozen’ in a water-soluble coating. He sent 80 kilometres of the yarn to Tilburg, where he and the product developers set to work creating ‘Marinero’, a collection of dresses inspired by life in and with the sea.
To investigate how the use of adaptive yarns could lead to a new form of tailoring, Montes experimented on a loom with a white cotton warp and water-soluble weft. In a subsequent phase, he changed the warp threads from white to black, and later replaced the cotton with monofilament, which, in combination with the fragile, soluble yarn, resulted in an architectonic effect.
All 42 dresses in the ‘Marinero’ collection were woven as squares, with floats – loose threads – for the head and arms. Water was then needed to tailor each one. The dresses were displayed on mannequins and placed on the TextielMuseum’s roof. Over time, the rain sculpted and moulded the garments, radically transforming them. The most dramatic transformation occurred in the first week, but the entire process took about half a year.
Jef Montes graduated cum laude from ArtEZ University of the Arts in Arnhem in 2012. After being nominated for the Lichting New Talent Award, Montes founded his own label with the aim of developing luxury fabrics from sustainable and recycled materials. In 2018, he established Studio Adaptive Skins. This textile architecture studio focuses on the application of adaptive clothing, mainly wearable designs, high fashion and material installations. In addition, the studio offers a broad range of adaptive textiles and services to other companies. Sustainability and upcycling are important starting points.
