Innovation in Estonian heritage-based knitting

Abstract

Innovation is an intentionally introduced significant and positive change to an existent practice. In crafts, innovation is challenging because, by nature, crafts are based on traditions and collective knowledge; they involve practising something the way it has always been practiced. If anything changes, it is copied rapidly by other craftspeople. In this article, I explain innovation in traditional glove-knitting through the concept of transformation of the tradition, and I analyse the case using a method called technique-concept-utility-structure-material (TCUSM), which was introduced by Adhi Nugraha in 2010. According to this method, one must know the tradition thoroughly in order to make conscious and justifiable changes to it. One must compare and explain what is traditional and what is new in one’s products. I combine this method with an artistic autoethnographic approach. Within my personal practice, the most significant change to the original involves combining and borrowing aesthetic elements from other traditional textiles or developing my own combinations of patterns and colours. First, I give a short over­view of the history of embroidered gloves in Estonia, then demonstrate, with the help of explanations and photographs, contemporary gloves, made by me.