Dust is a personalized companion that you can attach to your clothes. It gives you comfort and relaxation when you are depressed or tired. It also randomly snores, vibrates and farts.

In the city,
between huge cubes of buildings,
we walk by people without awareness,
because they are strangers.
We might have been in a same elevator a week ago.
We might have watched a same movie.
We might have used a same bathroom somewhere.

We share the air, the water, the earth.

We all breathe, eat, dream, desire, live, reproduce, and will die.
We are all animal.

I would like to share our forgotten umbilical cord,

\’Savage cord\’

In broad term, we are all from the same big mother land.
Once we were the one.

This is a single long cord(approximately 70 meters) made of stocking stuffed with plastic bags. First I wrap my body with a cord, and start to hand one end to the stranger. The stranger wraps his/herself as well, and ask another stranger to share the savage cord.
At the end, we will all be the one again for a moment.

For the show, I will show the savage cord along with the documentation of performance in Washington Square Park on April 14th.
Audience can both watch the performance and experience the same performance by physically trying it on.

The emergence of online, social networking has dramatically changed the way we look at the schematics of interaction. We no longer have to wonder how friends know each other. Now we can look it up online and digitally see the social lines of connection. But how else can we illustrate social networking? Can digital, social networking be illustrated physically through a garment? I have explored the idea of mapping social connections by using personal articles of clothing.

We all have pairs of jeans that we do not wear anymore but hold on to. What if the idea of \”handing down\” clothing became a way to communicate your personal connection with someone? If you are not going to wear them, then maybe your friends should!

To incorporate the idea of social networking through garments, I have collected a pair of jeans from approximately thirty of my friends. My goal is to physically demonstrate social connections, through a modular, patchwork skirt called, \”My Skirt.\”

\”My Skirt\” is made up of hexagon shaped patches, each of which is derived from the pairs of jeans that I collected. The skirt will illustrate how each person knows one another, by their placement within the garment. For instance, I met Megan, and Megan introduced me to Bridgette, and then Bridgette introduced me to Rita, etc. All three of these patches will be placed next to each other in the skirt.

As social connections continue to grow, so will the skirt. Each patch has both hook and eye closures, so that they can continue to connect with other patches. The skirt\’s shape will continually change, just as a digital, social networking diagram would.

I am breaking down clothing to units of a few different shapes, and creating a system of interchangeable pieces that can be put together to create a variety of different outfits. The goal is to allow for playful experimentation with form, color, and texture of materials.

The Gender Neutralization Device (GND) is a performative wearable that enables women to de-emphasize certain physical signifiers as a way to explore how gender is understood. The GND is a two-layered shirt system. The first layer is a modified crew-neck undershirt that includes a cloth wrapper that flattens the chest area. The second layer is a modified dress shirt and tie that enables the wearer to trigger a system of illumination through a simple adjustment of her tie, thereby calling attention to herself. Similar to the male peacock, which fans his extravagant plumage to attract attention as part of courtship, the GND encourages users to choose their own method of interaction, deciding whether to announce their gender ambiguity or de-emphasize it.

For myriad reasons, a growing number of women and transgendered people seek to flatten their chest to mask their visible secondary sexual characteristics. The two-layered construction of the GND operates as both a design solution and an intervention into this growing phenomenon.

One of my goals with the project is to further investigate the interstices between genders. By dramatizing the state of being neither one gender or the other, the GND is a playful addition to the growing discourse on who you are born versus who you wish to be.

SMS, or the secret messgae sweatshirt is a system for personal expression embedded in an everyday hooded sweatshirt. The system uses thermochromic ink, fabric swatches, conductive thread, conductive Velcro, conductive fabric tape, wrapping wire, and rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.

It is designed to be wearable, modular, durable, Eco-conscious, low-Tech, easy to use, easy to adapt, and most of all, fun.

The battery (encased in a secure but removable pouch in the pocket) is connected to a button switch, that, when activated, will send current to the conductive thread patches, which will heat up, and thus change the color of the ink on the patch, revealing a message/symbol/etc.

The ink changes color from black to clear, so the message underneath will have to be painted on the fabric beforehand (as the fabric color itself is black as well).

In a social context, it is both a dig at \’sarcastic\’ sayings on printed t-shirts and a form of \’urban camouflage\’. For instince, no one takes it seriously when they see a guy walking down the street with a shirt that says, \”F— You!\”; it cannot be personal, because it is equally visable to everyone around. However, what would happen if the guy\’s shirt had been blank until you were the closest person to him, and THEN the shirt had displayed a message? The timing of the display creates the possibility of meaning, a concept I would very much like to try out.

his platform allows for very interesting commentary on not only privacy and intimacy, but the Fashion world as a whole; objectification, materialism,. . . sexism?

Inspired on making a toy something portable, foldable, wearable, using the less space and the kid could have a good time and learn while the mother is busy most while in the street, wait line, etc.
see references and others on my website!

http://www.carolinapino.net/jacketjacketson.htm