Junya Watanabe Man, SS12, Paris.
Patches were the perfect complement to the many variations of overalls at the Spring-Summer 2012 show for Junya Watanabe Man. Both contrast fabrics and self-on-self patches were used to create layered designs focusing around pockets that then spread across the fronts and sides of shirts.
It appeared that the patches were applied both on top of the fabric, and also from underneath the main shell fabric, and held in place by a variety of zigzag and twin needle stitches.
Sewing patches onto a garment can cause either the base or patch fabric to buckle while you’re sewing. One way around this is to use bondaweb» – a product by Vilene that is basically like a double sided fusing with a paper backing. This allows you to iron adhesive side down (as you would a normal fusing) and then peel off the paper backing to reveal the second side of adhesive. You can then place the patch in position on the base cloth as needed and iron into place. This will form a strong bond making it a much simpler process to sew on any functional or decorative topstitching.
Junya Watanabe image from Vogue.co.uk» Technical images from The Cutting Class»
