It seems believable that the resurgence of handmade design is due to its easy accessibility. With online sites such as makezine.com and instructables.com, it is now feasible for people to train themselves in a marketable craft using only online guides. It is easy to learn complex knitting patterns when you have a YouTube video to walk you through each stage (Thompson, 2009). It is also these online crafting sites that in response, have therefore witnessed a rise in popularity, due to the backlash to the mass-production and mass-consumerism of the past decade (Trend Bible, 2009). Now that so many people are finding or creating something unique to meet their needs, handcrafting has now taken off as a widespread trend, due
to economic pressures to save money in as many ways as possible. This has resulted in a number of trends witnessing growth because they can all provide their individual ways to meet that bottom line. Consumers can regain a little bit of control that they thought they had lost during the recession, through the handmade and sustainable movements. It is surprising and quite ironic that the handmade aesthetic is successful thanks to a mix of DIY and the Internet (Imre, 2010). It has only become possible for small-scale makers to get their creations seen by a much larger population due to the Internet. This was previously unimaginable (Heimerl 2008, pg. 38). Yet it is not solely the crafters who have benefited from the pairing of the handmade and
Previous - Home - Next