Burke Residency 16: Freeform Cltr
•Posted on February 10 2022

Andrea: Hi Emma, I am Andrea, a 24 year old girl from Panama, I met Kath in my second year of uni in Paris and I am so happy I have had the opportunity to work with her and also to grow in so many aspects together. I think we both share a love for rare unique things and concepts that connect us in a very special way. Starting Freeform has definitely helped us discover more about ourselves. Working with a friend that also shares this urge for growth and discovery has made this process even more fun. FREEFORM started and continues to evolve from our curiosity for circular design and alternative ways to change the fashion industry. We expect to keep evolving and to come up with innovative ideas that support sustainable fashion.
A: I believe FREEFORM became a way of thinking and a way of facing life. As we grow into our own expression we appreciate the expression of others as well and that's why within upcycling we create unique pieces and that allows us and others to CREATE YOUR OWN FORM. By reusing materials that others might not want or consider trash, has definitely trained our eye to find potential in everything we see, therefore we believe that we can find inspiration everywhere and in anything.
A: We like to use our brand name, FREEFORM, as a way of thinking, it helps us go with the flow and appreciate mistakes and imperfection in order to use them as bridges for creation. We believe that upcycling in a way forces us to improvise at times in a creative way around a main concept. For example when we were working on our collection PRIMARIO, we were practicing the use of colors and zig zags in some left over fabric, we actually liked the messy look it had with all the colors and strings hanging, that we actually designed the vianka pants and pablo top out of this messy trial. We also received a bag of pre-loved garments and one of those bags came with a pile of gloves. We saw the gloves and loved the material they were made of and decided to create the Vanessa top out of them. This top was not planned nor designed previously, we simply worked with what we had and the moment. We receive pre - loved garments from donations and we also source pre - loved in order to get some kind of consistency in the patterns.
A: Panama is the place where it all started. We love to use the phrase reinvented in Panama, because Panama is not a country that manufactures clothes nor fabrics, we would love to see Panama as a country that could actually be circular and instead of manufacturing, it can be a hub for recycling and reusing. Panama is home and we will always want to bring some of it to other viewers.
A: FREEFORM became a way of thinking and a point of view , we even find our customers and friends using FREEFORM as an adjective to describe things that are free, flowy, weird, cool, perfectly imperfect, colorful, funky, authentic, RAW and organic.
K: Yes, haha we get excited when people ask about these collabs! The fanzine we publish was a collab we did with our friends who created an amazing lecture club that has evolved into a feminist group that fights against menstrual poverty and equality on sexual rights. When we realized how the government was managing the distribution of resources among people in need, we couldn't believe that menstrual hygiene was taken out of the picture. We saw the mission our friends carried in 2020 at the verge of COVID and decided to help, and the creative way to do it was creating a fanzine that held dialogue about the political, enviromental and social repercussions around menstruation. With this fanzine our final aim was to find ways to finance menstrual cups, in parallel with workshops about menstrual hygiene for women in need.
A: Our aim is to be able to upcycle a whole range of items in order to give them longer life on our planet and avoid landfills. We believe FREEFORM is always evolving as long as we are also growing, we expect new design ideas to come out soon and some more innovative creations and projects.
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