Fibonacci Skirt

I'm back to designing, and it feels great!


As I mentioned in an earlier entry, I am working on product development for my company Cochenille (www.cochenille.com). We are in the middle of creating a product called Easy Seven: Skirts. This is a collection of skirt patterns that we teach you how to draft using my software, Garment Designer. There are seven skirts in the set, and each skirt is designed to teach you how to use the software in a more creative way; basically, we want to teach you how to think “outside of the box”.

Fibonacci was an Italian mathematician of the Middle Ages (1170 – 1250 A.D.) He is best know for his use of a number sequence that he discussed in his book Libri Abaci.
In the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, each number is the sum of the previous two numbers, starting with 0 and 1. Therefore, the sequence is as follows:
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610 etc.

There is a relationship between "Fibonacci numbers" and the Golden Ration (which was used widely in Renaissance art, world architecture, etc. If you divide one number by the preceding number in the sequence you get very close to the golden ratio, which is 1: 1.618 or .618:1.

In the design of this skirt, I created three panels for the front and three for the back, which use the Fibonacci sequence proportions. Below you can see the patterns, once printed and taped together, and then the cutting out.


Since I chose to use a dark and patterned polka-dot knit fabric for all the gores, it became necessary to accent the seams in some way so that you could actually see the proportions of the panels in the skirt. To do this, I cut strips of a contrast knit fabric and stitch these on the surface of the seam (from the right side of the garment). I am using my sister's sewing machine, and already I miss my new Brother machine which seems to do everything except the dishes!




Below you see progress-to-date. All that remains is the waistband and hem!