‘Fabrics Have Always Been Mathematical’
Jhane Barnes had a difficult decision to make when she finished high school--astrophysics or fashion design?
She had always dreamed of a career in science, but she was already recognized for her superior sewing skills and keen eye for color.
“I remember going on a tour of Europe with my high school teacher and going to see Cardin and Pucci and Gucci and I didn’t care about them at all,” says Barnes. “But she really pushed me. She called my parents and said, ‘Design comes easy to her so you’ve got to send her off to FIT [Fashion Institute of Technology in New York].’ And all I kept thinking was ‘Really?’ ”
Fast forward to 1997 and, at age 43, Jhane Barnes is more than just the first woman designer to ever succeed in menswear. These days the New York-based business that bears her name is an $80-million, merchandise machine producing everything from men’s sportswear and tailored clothing (through American Fashions in San Diego) to textiles (Knoll), furniture (in conjunction with Bernhardt), carpets (with Spinning Wheel Rugs) and bedding (via Burlington). Recently that business expanded into free-standing retail stores, the first of which opened in the Century City Center earlier this month.
Still, Barnes’ claim to fame remains her innovative and often colorful fabrics, which combine the ancient art of hand-weaving with modern computer technology.
“When I started my business in 1976, I used to buy 30-year-old leftover fabrics and since people had never seen them before, they had the sense that I did my own,” says Barnes, which is precisely what she did two years later. She bought a tabletop hand loom and started weaving her own one-of-a-kind fabrics--richly textured and vibrantly hued works of art that are now Barnes’ calling card.
When computer software was invented in the early 1980s to create patterns electronically and operate the looms automatically, Barnes finally got the chance to combine her interest in mathematical theory with her love of textiles.
“Fabrics have always been mathematical. We just don’t always think of them in those terms,” says Barnes. “One day we were weaving a new fabric and I told my mathematician [her company employs two] ‘I would like the threading in groups of four and then down by one.’ And he said to me, ‘Oh, you know what that is? That’s called a drift in mathematics.’ And then he would go and write an algorithm set, put it into the computer and then I would click on the mouse to see what it would produce.”
While many fashion designers today use computer-aided design systems to create their collections, few use the computer the way Barnes does. “A lot of what I design today couldn’t be done by hand at all. Because you can’t even realize it in your head,” says Barnes, who says her dreams have inspired many new designs.
“I’ve had dreams that changed my career--like the way I use color in one of my shirts. I woke up one night thinking ‘Oh my gosh! If I can mathematically create images, then I should be able to mathematically or algorithmically assign colors to the directions of the patterns.’ I know that sounds really multilevel, but that’s exactly how it happened.”
Barnes’ most recent inspiration is a collection of colorful printed cotton shirts created by a computer-generated process known as ‘photo-realism.’ Similar to desktop publishing, the software allows Barnes to create a print using millions of colors on a computer screen and then print it using dyes on fabric the way a printer uses ink on paper.
“It’s 180 dots per inch and the precision is incredible,” marvels Barnes. “If you were looking at this print on paper you would see a series of four-color dots all blending together to create millions of colors. But the dots blend on the fabric, so it kind of looks like heather.”
The process is so revolutionary that Barnes is apparently the only fashion designer in the world currently using it. While nearly all Barnes’ regular menswear collection uses woven fabrics, the designer envisions a day when photo-realism prints make up 50% of her apparel products.
Barnes recognizes that once the technology is commonplace, her visions may be history. One day, the customers that now pay $120 for a Jhane Barnes shirt or $1,200 for one of her distinctive suits, will be able to print their own fabrics at home using a personal computer and dye-jet printer.
By that time, of course, Barnes says she and her computer will be onto bigger and better things.
