Changing Materials: Fashion Designers (Stage 3) PDF

STAGE 3 Unit focus: Fashion Designers Text focus: Information Text Changing Materials Fashion would be nothing without the materials that make it. Designers have always tried to u...

STAGE 3 Unit focus: Fashion Designers Text focus: Information Text Changing Materials Fashion would be nothing without the materials that make it. Designers have always tried to use existing materials in new ways. There have been times when certain materials were too expensive. Sometimes only royalty was allowed to wear them. Cotton may be one of the most common fabrics now, but it wasn’t always. It takes a lot of time and effort to separate cotton from the husks that it grows in. This painful job was often given to slaves owned by the plantation. It still took a long time to get enough cotton to make a garment. Making something like a sail for a ship would have taken nearly two years just to make enough yarn. We are surrounded by textiles now. It is almost impossible to imagine a world without them. You have fabric curtains, bedclothes, tablecloths and sofas. You have wardrobes filled with clothes. Pretty much every room in your house will contain fabric of some sort. This is a very recent state of affairs. The first pilgrims set off for North America in 1620. They were told to take clothes and bedding because they couldn’t get any when they landed. The town of Massachusetts once made it law that everybody had to spin yarn at home. It was the only way that they could get enough fabric to make enough clothes. Even the most basic clothing was valuable because of how long it took to make. Thefts from washing lines were common. People often left their clothes to their children in their will. The idea of fashion didn’t exist for a long time for most people. It didn’t matter what kings and queens were wearing if you were struggling to make enough material for a pair of trousers. Royalty and wealthy barons may have looked to each other for ideas of what to wear, but most people were happy to have clothes at all. Wealthy people began competing with each other in the 14th century. They showed how wealthy they were by changing their clothes and styles often. Sometimes things became fashionable because of political pressure. ing Ar d o Rea und all resources ©2023 Literacy Shed e um C u r r ic ul Th http://www.literacyshedplus.com King Louis XIV of France and King Charles II of England began to lose their hair in the 17th century. They both hired wigmakers to help them out. Suddenly, it was incredibly important for wealthy people to show their support for their king. These heavy wigs often itched terribly. That didn’t stop people from shaving their own healthy hair and replacing it with an uncomfortable wig! For most of history, clothes were custom-made to fit. The idea of buying clothes from a shop didn’t really exist until the middle of the 19th century. Fashion trends as we know them now began to emerge in the late 1800s and early 1900s. RETRIEVAL FOCUS 1. When did the first pilgrims set off for North America? 2. Which town made it a law for people to spin yarn at home? 3. When did rich people begin to follow fashion trends? 4. What happened to clothes when people died in the past? 5. Why might clothes have been stolen from a washing line? VIPERS QUESTIONS S Why was cotton so expensive at first? S How did a king encourage people to wear wigs? I Why might people have regretted their decision to wear wigs? V Find three words in the text that all describe what clothing is made from. I Why was changing which clothes you wore a sign of being rich? all resources ©2023 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com