Project development: Fashion Technology

In my previous presentation for my concept in project development module, I had the opportunity to gather feedback and different perspective. My initial idea was to create a garment that would speak of your emotions and present it in a wearable. While I still do like the idea, it struck me when someone in class mentioned of the plant Mimosa Pudica. Mimosa Pudica, as many might have encountered before, is a sensitive plant that will have the compound of its leave fold inwards and droop when touched or shaken.

I was impressed at how nature could create this interactive piece without using any micro-controllers and I eagerly wanted to relate this to a human-to-human interaction. I was mapping in my mind of different possibilities that has correlation to this and thought of the idea revolving 'modesty'.

Both men and female has their own form of modesty. It is apparent for women than it is for men. Over the years, we see the evolution of fashion and observed how trends come and go. While modesty has not been a thriving factor for women and fashion, a certain population of women always had issues with men staring at their mid section. A collective responses suggest that women do not mind if men take glances, but once the glance became more than 3 seconds, they get uncomfortable.

Being a male myself, I do not fault my fellow brethren. It is a natural act that we have to contain but it happens. With this made predicament, I envision to bridge the idea of using fabric manipulation and emerging media and provide a solution for women to express their fashion sense while making it safe from those eerie stares.

Emotional Objective

To allow women the freedom to express themselves without being emotionally harassed/disturbed by creepy stares.

Physical Objective

To create a wearable technology piece that would complement the look/style of fashionable women today while maintaining the emotional objective.

Inspiration

I was inspired to use fabrics and manipulate them in a way that I could use and intersect this with emerging media.

Artist Inspiration - Ying Gao

Artist Inspiration - Behnaz Farahi

Moodboard

Creation

I tried to make some fabric manipulation by heat setting. For this method, you can only use certain fabric material for it to form and manipulate.

Idea 1

Inspired by tessellation. I wanted to create an accessory that drops down to the cleavage. There will be a raspberry Pi camera attached at the bottom where the crucial point is to detect face/eyes, it will trigger the tessellation to open when it detects a face.