Experiments in Communication

ZipWear is a series of modular, reconfigurable clothes that comprise of pieces of fabric that can be zipped to each other.

Description
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.

Personal Statement
A fascination with a comparison between scars and seams led me to this idea. I came across an article about how the term "seamless" is being used a lot in technology, which might be better off bringing more attention to the seams, the points where things are put together, as opposed to trying to hide them. Similarly, I am taking the seams away from clothing, and replacing them with temporary resealable zips (implemented wither with zippers or ziplocs), to give people the freedom to experiment with their clothing and how it's put together.

User Scenario
People will have different pieces, and will experiment with different ways of putting them together, to create a different garment each time. When they don't feel like wearing the pieces as a skirt anymore, they can turn them into a shirt, or even just an accessory (e.g. handbag). People might also trade pieces with their friends.

Posted by kyveli at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The presentation I gave to class on ZipWear can be found here.

Posted by kyveli at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This bag was created using a hacked toy. I took a ball that blinks in flashy colors when it is slammed, and noticed that the switch was a spring that makes contact to a metal surface to set the blinking lights off. I figured out that the lights will also go off if the spring is touching the metal plate and this contact breaks, so I inverted the switch mechanism so that it will blink when the spring is pulled. Because the blinking lights are red and blue (somewhat resembling a police car), I figured it would make for a good anti-theft device.

Here is how the bag works:

1. Pin flower to yourself (or to something you don't want to get stolen).

2. If someone tries to steal the bag away from you...

3. Alarm will blink!!

Posted by kyveli at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I created a massage shrug, embedding vibrating motors (the kind found in cell phones) into the inside of the shrug (where the shoulderblades would be). The switch is the entire organza shawl that is attached to the shrug.

The switch here is on.

The switch here is off. You can see the conductive threads attached to the motors sticking out the back. When these make contact with the organza (which is connected to the (-) of the battery), the circuit closes and the motors vibrate, giving you a gentle massage.

To make the organza conduct not only lengthwise, but also crosswise, I sewed a narrow strip of conductive fabric perpendicular to the conductive fibers of the organza.
construction detail:

Posted by kyveli at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Keywords:
modular clothes, transformation of the clothing, creativity of the wearer, playfulness, interactivity, experimentation with forms and textiles.

Inspirations:
-Anne Galloway's talk on Scars and Seams

-Galya Rosenfeld, Object Un Dress

-Fascination with form of fabric and clothing

Vivienne Westwood

-Lego

Aspirations:
People will have different pieces, and will experiment with different ways of putting them together, to create a different garment each time. When they don't feel like wearing the pieces as a skirt anymore, they can turn them into a shirt, or even just an accessory (e.g. handbag). People might also trade pieces with their friends.

Concerns:
I thought I wanted to have the zippers blend in with the color of the fabric, but after seeing this photo I think it might be interesting to have the zippers stand out more, like piping. This makes more sense to me because it's really what the project is about, so why try to hide it?

I am considering also using snaps as a platform to allow the wearer to slightly modify the shape of each piece, to achieve a better fit.

Similar projects (not directly related)

-Pell Overton - Walldrobe/Wearpaper
Flat pieces of leather, pre-cut with a laser-cutter and outfitted with snaps so that they can snap to eachother and take form as clothes, or snap onto the wall and become part of the wallpaper.
(under research: Walldrobe/Wearpaper)

-Issey Miyake, A-POC

-Final Home

-Sandra Garatt Modular Collection
modular clothes, but not really in the same sense that I am thinking about.

-Galya Rosenfeld, Modular Clothing

Posted by kyveli at 01:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I decided I wanted to deal with a slightly abstract sense of the word "sense". I want my project to deal with a hunch or premonition, a sense that something is about to happen. I don't know how much this happens to people, but if it happens, I can only guess it is somewhat random and based on something extra-sensory, something abstract.

This makes me think about movie soundtracks, how the music in movies always prepares you or warns you that something is about to happen, and how that affects the way you interpret what you see. (You know that something very bad will happen to the swimmers in Jaws.)

I decided to take a rather playful approach to this subject, so I want to make a jacket that based on a rather random, meaningless input (the direction of the wind? -- this idea comes from Mary Poppins) plays a random piece of music that is very suggestive of a certain mood, so it will warn you that something good/bad/funny/romantic is about to happen.

I want to use music from movie soundtracks (comedies, romances, thrillers, dramas). I will hack an mp3 player. I have to embed speakers, and the mp3player in the jacket. I also have to work out the trigger: what will it be, how will it work?

I will have to set the mp3 player to shuffle, and to only play one track at a time.

Posted by kyveli at 07:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I don't remember why, but I was thinking about pleats. A part of the Greek national costume, the "foustanela", is a skirt that consists of 400 pleats, one for each year that Greece was under Turkish occupation. This is an interesting example of clothing being used to "reveal"/bear evidence of a negative part of Greek history, like a scar that externalizes and reminds the wearer of bad times that have passed.

I wonder if there are other such symbolisms in national costumes (I'm sure there must be something, but I am wondering what, and if there are other cases in which there is representation of an event, something with a temporal quality).

Posted by kyveli at 07:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am interested in the stories/narratives behind scars.
I am interested in the emotional connection/reaction people have towards their scars.

I am interested in how these can be translated into wearables terms (zippers, seams).
What would make your clothes special enough that you had to relay a story about them to people?

What if clothes had more than just a surface layer?
I don't yet know what the purpose of having such clothes would be. I guess I started thinking of the concept clothes as independent entities, with their own moods, with depth, personality. I think of this as a spin of the idea of clothes as "second skin". If clothes have scars (zippers, seams), shouldn't they also have something underneath?

I guess I have to think about what kind of purpose or functionality such an "organic/living" clothing might have, and if this is the kind of approach I want to take.

Posted by kyveli at 10:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Though I haven't decided yet how literal the reference to scars in my project will be, I did some research on the topic. Here's what I found:

anthropological study of scars:
source: http://illuminations.berkeley.edu/archives/2004/article.php?volume=2&story=1
"I'm most interested in the stories we create around scars, how someone like a doctor looks at scars as opposed to the way someone who lives with very visible scarring would," says Case. "There is a very human need to make narratives around scars."
[...]
"Her friend showed a kind of revulsion, as if looking at the scar could remind her that it could happen to her, too,' Case says. "Finally, the cancer survivor made her friend look at the scar. She said: 'Look at this! It means that I survived!'"
___________________________________

I did a Flickr search for "scar", and found many photos of scars.
after looking at the photos, and reading their descriptions, I have come to the following conclusions:

people feel need to "point out", document, call some attention to their scars, even if it's not pleasant to them ("This is a very hard photo to take of my right arm. This is an old football scar.")

people have a somewhat unrealistic perception of their scars. most of the pictures of scars on flickr, the scar was very hard to discern (maybe it was just the photo quality / zoom level, but still)

scars are important to their bearers. they like to tell the story behind the scar, even if it was a trivial event/accident that happened years and years ago.

Positive views of scars:
"Not the scars of life, but the scar of life, the scar that gave a life back... This is where the surgeon entered my dad's head and removed and moved blood vessels that were pressing on his nerves."

Posted by kyveli at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I came across the notes of an anthropologist's presentation from a wearables conference, and she was talking about seams and scars, and how they demarcate a site where two pieces have been separated and/or put together. They indicate something that has happened in the past and that could happen again in the future.
(I'll let someone better versed summarize the talk:
"Anne Galloway's concise ideas on Seams and Scars. For her, these are signs of being liminal and hybrid, traces of actions, of either making or becoming. Whereas the Ubicomp is looking for a "seamless" experience, wouldn't it be sometimes more interesting to exploit the glitches and use them as a critical tool? This becomes especially important when talking about flesh and machine, since this increasingly possible construct - even though very much a product of western thinking - will bring up a lot of questions in relation to material culture." (from wmmna))

Continue reading "Final project thoughts" »

Posted by kyveli at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by kyveli at 06:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I thought Simmel's observations on Fashion were interesting and very true for the most part. There was one thing that I wish he had addressed in his article: How does something become "in style"?
He talks about Fashion very abstractly, as if it is something that just happens, and he gives reasonably good explanations of why it happens (though he is really studying the effects more than the causes). He doesn't explain the role of the fashion designers, or tailors, or whoever it is that decides what will be "in style", or creates the thing that will be "in style".

He talks about "fashion" as it is followed by the wearer, but I think that without the designers having first introduced some different fashions, it wouldn't evolve the way Simmel describes. In his description of the differences between male and female attitudes in fashion, especially in the 14th century, where women would wear very elaborate outfits, he doesn't really address the question of who makes these outrageous clothes for women to wear. Is it women who make the clothing? Or men who suggest what women should be wearing?

Posted by kyveli at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)