Master Thesis

Wearables for Everyday Fashion

Marie Olofsen DIGITAL DESIGN AND COMMUNICATION MASTER THESIS SUPERVISOR: ANNA VALLGÅRDA MAY 2013

Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

Acknowledgements

This thesis could not have been made without the support and help from these amazing people:

Anna Vallgårda - my, wonderful, inspiring supervisor, who have generously supplied knowledge, discussions, materials and most importantly her patience.

René Brinkmann - for holding my hand and supporting me all the way, while also taking care of cooking, cleaning AND making me smile and laugh.

Mom and Dad - for feeding me, and supplying work space and continous support.

Trille - who helped sew, worked with the layout and who also fed me and let me sleep in her bed anytime I needed it.

Mette - who helping with the sewing and supplied great discussions.

Hanne and Sirid - for proofreading and giving great advice.

Nina Fejerskov - for letting me use print facilites at HFS

Magdalena Kogutowska - for helping with practicalities in getting the shirt to work Sebastian Büttrich - for helping with batteries

Lars Toft Jacobsen - for helping with the code, the hardware, the circuit... basically building the hardware and software for the shirt.

Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

ABSTRACT

What are the reasons that wearables have not caught on and why do we hardly ever see these new aesthetic and functional expressions outside exhibitions, conferences, and stage performances? I propose that one reason is the aesthetic expression of wearables. Prototypes and commercially available wearables tend to be aesthetically and material-wise quite far from the aesthetics and the material (fabric) of the clothes we normally wear. Many wearables use LEDs as an aesthetic expression, which is quite another aesthetic than what everyday clothes look and feel like, seeing that everyday clothes are mostly based on fabric and textile techniques. In this thesis I explore the realm of the fashionable expression of wearables through aesthetic and material explorations. I propose a design method based on fashion methods and material explorations for designing fashionable, everyday wearables and I show how this method can be executed through a practice based prototype design of an everyday fashionable wearable.

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Content Wearables for Everyday Fashion 1 Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. Wearables

3 6

2.1 Wearables from a Technological Approach 2.2 Wearables from a Bodily Approach 2.3 Aesthetic wearables 2.4 The Wearables Landscape Today; What is Missing?

7 9 18 22

Chapter 3. Method Proposal for Designing Fashionable Wearables 3.1 Fashion Methods

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3.2 Computations and Wearables 3.3 Combining textiles and technology 3.4 How to Work with Materials and Techniques 3.5 How to Combine Fashion Methods with Material Explorations

Chapter 4. Designing an Everyday, Fashionable Wearable 4.1 Opening up the Design Space

4.2 Material Exploration – Thermochromic Inks 4.3 Material Explorations - Electronics 4.4 Material Findings 4.5 Revising the Moodboards and Making a Final Design 4.6 Making the Wearable 4.7 The Final Designs

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37 37 39 48 52 53 59 62

Chapter 5. Conclusion

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References

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Chapter 1. Introduction “The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.” M. Weiser

The quote above is from the article “The Computer for the 21st Century”

by Mark Weiser about the future of technology (Weiser 1991). As we move further into the 21st century, it seems that Mark Weiser becomes ever more correct in his prediction. All over the world, researchers, engineers and designers are looking into the newest technologies in an aim to embed technology into “the fabric of everyday life” – the clothes that we wear. In this thesis, I focus on the aesthetics and functions of clothes with technology; “wearables”. Roughly described, wearables cover not only clothes, but basically all technology worn on the body, be it a gadget worn around the wrist like a watch to measure biometrics or a piece of clothing that with the use of LEDs and sensors twinkle when the wearer moves.

Wearables have been predicted to become the “next big thing” quite many times; from a future fashion show in 1997 in Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris as a collaboration between students from MIT and Creapole École de Creation in Paris (MIT), to Sabine Seymour, wearables designer and author of Functional Aesthetics and Fashionable Technology, who predicted that: “The year 2010 appears to be the juncture when fashionable technology is elevated from the phase of experimentation.” (Seymour 2010: 7) to Forbes Magazine predicting that the year 2013 will be the year of wearables (Forbes). We are beginning to see wearables in our everyday lives, but mostly if we are health- or sports interested – the wearables in those areas are springing up everywhere – Nike Fuel Band, Fit Bit and Shine from Misfit wearables are just a few (see section 2.1), but besides these, wearables have yet to enter the commercial, everyday market and truly become a part of “the fabric of everyday life”.

So why are we still not seeing wearables in our everyday shops? Why do we still either have to buy a sportsgadget to measure our biometrics or sign up for Google’s Glass and pay $1500 to be a testperson (Computerworld)? Both gadgets that are neither aesthetically pleasing, nor reminding us very much of technology being woven into fabric? Why have there been so few (successful) attempts to promote an aesthetically pleasing, but still everyday fashionable wearable that not only cater to functionality but also to aesthetics? Or maybe only to aesthetics, as a new form of fashion? It seems the coupling of technology and textiles is always quite a far reach for the everyday consumer, and the aesthetics of wearables that we are able to get our hands on are either sporty, techy, or full of blinking LEDs as e.g. the designs from British CuteCurcuit. One of the reasons is of course that the technology used is still somewhat expensive, which makes the pricing of the clothes out of reach for a lot of people, thus not enabling everyday fashion to develop and catch on in this field.

However, when looking at the aesthetic expression of wearables, they do not cater to the everyday fashion and clothing we see on the streets, neither in form or 3 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

aesthetics, nor in function. They are often quite bulky or they draw a lot of attention by using LEDs, they use another aesthetic than what we normally see and the technology is often not embedded in the fabric, but merely placed upon it, if fabric is even used.

The question is, are aesthetics, fashion and fabric even important in regards to wearables? Is the most important thing not, that the wearable is functional and can provide a service to the wearer? If looking at what researchers, anthropologists, sociologists and philosophers, who have studied dress, clothes and fashion have to say, the answer is; The most important aspect of clothes and fashion is the aesthetics, the adornment, the beauty and individuality it brings to people’s lives.

The sociologist Joanne Entwistle writes: “Dress is a basic fact of social life and this, according to anthropologists, is true of all known human cultures: all people ‘dress’ the body in some way, be it through clothing, tattooing, cosmetics or other forms of body painting. To put it another way, no cultures leaves the body unadorned but adds to, embellishes, enhances or decorates the body.” (Entwistle: 2010: 6). Entwistle also quotes Quentin Bell who says; “Our clothes are too much a part of us for most of us to be entirely indifferent to their condition: it is as though the fabric were indeed a natural extension of the body, or even of the soul” (Quoted from Entwistle 2010: 9). The philosopher Hélène Cixous, agrees and points out, that clothing is not primarily a means to protect the body, but works as an extension of the body; as a marker of our individuality (Svendsen, 1996). So as we can see, and as we probably also all agree with, when thinking about the choices we make in the morning when we get dressed, the most important function of clothing is actually to decorate ourselves so we feel good in the clothes that we wear.

The sociologist Georg Simmel was one of the first sociologists, who acknowledged the importance of fashion and clothing and who also studied the phenomena. Simmel saw fashion as a manifestation of the contradictory desires for social inclusion and individuality – we want to belong to a group, but we also want to be individuals who stand out in that group. (Entwistle, 2010). The sociologist Anthony Giddens, has pointed out, that in the late modern society self-identity is not a given, as it was in modern society (Svendsen 1996). Today, self-identity has become part of what Giddens calls the self-reflective project; that individuals must construct their own self-identity from whatever means they have. The self – the individual – is something we have to create, surveille, sustain, change etc. (Ibid.).

The philosopher Lars Fr. H. Svendsen has looked further into this and points out, that especially the body is central as a means to construct a self-identity (Ibid.).

And just as Entwiste, Bell and Cixous pointed out, Svendsen also says, that clothes and fashion are an extension of the body and thus a way to construct an identity (Ibid.). Svendsen also points out, that because we have to choose a lifestyle and an identity and these are not a given, the choices become aesthetic choices. Aesthetics thus become central for the creation of the self, for the creation of identity (Ibid.).

If wearables are to become part of our everyday attire, it is evident that the aesthetics of wearables need to be more like aesthetics we are used to, in order for us to want to wear them to express ourselves as part of a group and as distinctive from other groups. It is also clear, that wearables need to fit into an overall appear4

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ance that can be mixed to create an individual look, in order to adhere to the fact that we are individuals who dress to express ourselves. As Svendsen points out, aesthetics are central in the creation of the self, so if wearables aim to be part of this self-creation, they must not only focus on service functions, but also on the aesthetic functions.

I propose that if we want to see a successful merger of technology and textiles, if we want to wear and promote the wearing of wearables, designers need to both comply to an everyday aesthetically pleasing expression and the comfort of the wearer. If we succeed in this, we will have the opportunity, through technology and textiles, to challenge both the world of fashion and the world of technology to think in new ways.

Thus;

In this thesis I will, through material and aesthetic explorations, investigate the realm of the aesthetic and fashionable expression of wearables in conjunction with technological possibilities.

My aim is to design a proof-of-concept of a wearable as part of a small collection of wearables with everyday, mainstream aesthetics. In order to do so, I review several wearables to find out, what might be missing, I propose a design method for how to design a fashionable, everyday wearable and I show how this method can be used in a design process, by making a proof-of-concept of one of the designs I make.

Thesis overview

This thesis is divided into five parts. Chapter one is the part you are reading now – the introduction.

Chapter two is an investigation and analysis of wearables, their aesthetics and their functions and to some degree the designers behind them. This chapter aims to find out, what exactly is missing in the field of wearables in order for them to become a part of our everyday wardrobe.

Chapter three is a proposal of a method to use in order to design wearables, based on theories and methods from wearables- fashion- and material and practice-based studies.

Chapter four is the practice-based execution of the design method proposed in chapter three. In this chapter I design a wearable based on the results from chapter two and on the method proposed in chapter three.

Chapter five is the final conclusion of the thesis.

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Chapter 2. Wearables

What is a wearable? As described in the beginning, a wearable is roughly described all technology worn on the body, but if going by the definition in a dictionary, a wearable is first and foremost a piece of clothing which is easy and suitable to wear and secondly it is a computer or other electronic device, carried on the body (Oxford). So if we merge the two together – clothing and computer, there is a whole new world of interpretations and ideas of what a wearable is that we cannot look up in the dictionary.

Joseph L. Dvorak writes in his book; Moving wearables into the mainstream that: “The term ‘wearables’ includes a wide spectrum of devices, services and systems.

Objects from entire desktop equivalent computers to a ring with an RFID chip have been referred to as wearables”. (2011:x). Steve Mann broadens the definition by also including “study of…” : “Wearable computing is the study or practice of inventing, designing, building, or using miniature body-borne computational and sensory devices. Wearable computers may be worn under, over, or in clothing, or may also be themselves clothes (i.e. “Smart Clothing” (Mann, 1996a))” (Mann, 2013).

So what we are dealing with, when it comes to wearables, is a diverse range of physical manifestations of ideas executed by designers, DIY’ers, computergeeks, engineers, architects and academic researchers all over the world, which explains why the term ‘wearable’ has been applied to so many different objects and studies of objects worn on the body. All of these different designers and researchers are with their approaches to wearables, making up the field of what computer and clothes are capable of when we merge them, and all of them investigate the field from different approaches, making the field immensely broad.

In this chapter I will present an overview of the field of wearables, seen in the context of the approach to designing wearables in order to find out what is missing in the field for it to become a part of everyday mainstream attire.

According to Seymour, wearables range in levels of expressiveness versus functionality. The most expressive and non-functional wearables are found in high fashion, and the most fuctional, less expressive wearables are found in workwear (Seymour 2009). As a continuation of this thought, in this chapter I propose that there are three different approaches, when it comes to designing wearables; either wearables are made from a technological, mobile and functional approach, from a bodily approach or from an aesthetic, expressive approach. This means, that either the focus of the wearable is technology, the body or the aesthetics on the body.

Within these approaches, there are different sub-focuses, which I will describe in each section. The examples of wearables I will be showing are representatives chosen from a very large field of wearables. I have chosen wearables that are quite different, in order to show how broad the field is but at the same time I have divided them into different categories, in order to get a better understanding of the different approaches and divisions within the field.

This of course mean that I have left out numerous wearables, but I have chosen the ones I see fit for the purpose of this thesis; to investigate the realm of the aesthetic 6 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

and fashionable expression of wearables in conjunction with technological possibilities.

After having reviewed the field of wearables, I will conclude the chapter by proposing what I find is missing in the field of wearables.

2.1 Wearables from a Technological Approach

The wearables described in this section, are wearables that focus on what technology can do for humans once the technology is mobile and functional. The body is seen as a vessel to place technology on, in order to make the technology more available, mobile or even aesthetic. This means, that the body, the comfort of it, and what the body can do is not taken so much into consideration in the design of the wearable, only the fact that the body is mobile, which in this case is seen as an advantage for the technology. The technology is therefore often hard and “square”. The examples chosen in this section have been chosen from a wide range of wearables, but I found these to be the best and broadest examples of wearables with a technological approach.

2.1.1 The Wearable Computer

In the 60s, the computer was a huge machinery that only scientists understood how to use, but since then, scientists and researchers have continuously worked on making the computer still smaller and increasingly more available for people who are not scientists. Today, the talk is of ubiquitous computing; computing that is everywhere. We find small computers in basically any technology we encounter, and almost all of us carry at least one computer with us every day; the mobile phone. Mobile technology is relatively new and it took a lot of work for it to get where it is today, where we are embedding it in all kinds of materials, wearables only being one of them.

One of the first to design a computer which was removed from the desktop and carried out in the world, as a piece of clothing worn on the body, was Steve Mann. Mann’s purpose was to make the use of a computer easier and more practical by making it small and mobile and able to carry everywhere. He wanted to make the computer ready to use in all situations, by making it wearable as clothes (Mann 1997). As can be seen in figure 1, Mann’s wearable computer has undergone a lot of different phases in order to become as mobile and unobtrusive as possible – including becoming still less noticeable. In the last picture - e - we can see how Mann can control the wearable with a remote control, thus having at least one of his hands free, but other than that, the glasses do not resemble a computer – or any of the other devices Mann carried around.

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Fig. 1. – The evolution of the wearable computer by Steve Mann. Photo: Steve Mann.

Mann’s wearable has never been put into production, but Google has made a wearable that resembles Mann’s glasses – the Google Glasses. Glass as they are marketed as, were announced in 2012 as the newest in mobile computation (Money) and they are also available for the mainstream user, which is the most important reason for including them in this review, seeing that they are actually wearables that soon can be purchased by the mainstream user and thus a great example of where we are headed in terms of wearables. Glass can take pictures, shoot video, give directions, text message, translate phrases and even share the screen in real time with someone who is present elsewhere by the use of speech recognition (Google). On the contrary to Mann’s glasses, Glass do not feature glass, but are only a thin frame with a small display in front of one eye and are so far the most unobtrusive mobile computer commercially available. Glass has had quite a broad publicity but the aesthetics of glass, is quite a topic of debate online, where quite many debaters agree that the glasses make people look quite geeky and are not especially flattering (Huffington Post and Techradar).

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Fig. 2. Glass on the runway for Diane Von Fürstenburg, September 2012. Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Whether or not Glass will be a success we cannot predict yet. So far, interested customers from USA have been able to apply to be Glass testers for the amount of 1500 US$ (Ecouterre). This means, that instead of aiming at the tech savvy early adopters, whom most likely will be very attracted to Glass, Google are targeting a broad spectrum of customers, preparing the market for when they release Glass commercially in the end of 2013 (Techradar).

2.1.2 The Aesthetic Computer

Whereas the aesthetics have not been one of the major focus points in the two above mentioned projects, other wearable computers do take aesthetics into consideration.

An example of a wearable made to make technology as small and mobile, but moreover as aesthetic as possible is Shine. Shine is a very simple looking jewelry-like accessory that tracks biometrics of the body throughout the day. It can be worn anywhere on the body by using the accessories, which turns it into either a bracelet or a broche-like accessory. It is water resistant, has a battery power of 4 months and is compatible with both Android and iPhones, so it can be used in many situations and for a long time. All the wearer has to do is sync Shine with her phone and the phone then keeps track of the activity. Shine does not have any buttons or cables instead the wearer taps it to see the progress of the day, which is visualized by lights (Shine).

Shine is a good example of technology that has been made aesthetic and less hard and “square” to look at, in order to adhere to the need for people to dress and express themselves aesthetically. There are other gadgets like Shine, e.g. the Nike Fuel Band and the Fit Bit (See fig. 3), but these gadgets are clearly adhering to a sports aesthetic and not to an everyday aesthetic. The aesthetics of Shine might explain why it has become so popular among the everyday mainstream customer.

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Misfit Wearables, the company behind Shine, raised money by using the online, crowfunding platform indiegogo.com, where it raised US$ 846.675 – and had only applied for US$ 100.000 (Indiegogo). It is now available for US $99 the accessories to hold it (clasp, wristband, necklace) are available from US $ 5 – US $ 79.

Fig. 3. FitBit in the top left corner, Nike+ FuelBand below and Shine on the right. Photos from Fitbit, Nike and Misfit wearables.

The last example I want to show in this sections, is the LilyPad Arduino. The LilyPad Arduino is actually not a wearable, but it is a means to make wearables and it has had a great impact on how wearables, made from a more bodily and more aesthetic, than technological approach, have been designed. The reason for including it in this section, is that it was designed especially to open up the field of technology and electronics to attract others than the typical, traditional male interest group (Buechley and Eisenberg, 2008), by making technology more aesthetic. However, it is still technology made with the focus of improving and spreading technology, not with the focus of the body.

The LilyPad is a microcontroller designed especially for wearables and e-textiles and a derivation from the original Arduino (LilyPad). Both the LilyPad Arduino and the Arduino board aim at easily creating interactive, functioning prototypes for academic researchers, DIY-crafters, and designers - basically anyone interested in embedding technology into things. The technologies in the boards are basically the same, but since the LilyPad is especially designed for making wearables. Every output and input is made as a small hole where conductive thread can be sewn through in order to create connections to sensors, LEDs and so forth. The LilyPad is small, light and has an aesthetic that resembles a piece of jewelry, making it easy to use in wearables without obstructing neither the comfort nor the aesthetic expression. The LilyPad can be used as part of a decorative and functional design.

The LilyPad was created by Leah Buechley who is an associate professor at the MIT Media Lab and director of the High-Low Tech research group that explores 10

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the intersection of computation, physical materials, manufacturing processes, traditional crafts and design (Buechley).

Fig. 4. One of the many Arduino boards and the LilyPad designed for making e-textiles and wearables. The aesthetic expression and the functionality are clearly very different. Photo: Arduino

The wearables described in this section are all made from a technological approach, not focusing very much on the body carrying the wearable. Of course, the smaller and more mobile technology becomes, the more it adheres to the comfort and the movement of the body. And the more the aesthetics are thought out, the more it appeals to an everyday customer. But it does not necessarily take into consideration all the things the body is actually capable of doing or sensing, e.g. in the case of Glass, the focus is only on the eyes and on the speech, whereas the body possesses so many other senses and functions.

In the next section, I will give examples of wearables that in one way or another use the body as the starting point for the design.

2.2 Wearables from a Bodily Approach

One of the main things that the body is capable of is to move and to sense.

As we saw in section 2.1, this capacity has been used to make technology mobile by placing it on the body. In this chapter, I have included wearables, that adhere more to the comfort and the functionality of the body, than to the technology. This means, that the technology described in this chapter has been made softer and more flexible in order to fit the flexible, moving body, whereas the technology in the previous section was hard and “square� and not meant for fitting the body. Moreover, the wearables in this section use technology as something to help the body either in regards to movement, communication or protection by monitoring and using the signals the body or the surroundings give out.

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2.2.1 The Sensing Body

Move is a tight fitting, ballet/gym-like suit, that tracks the wearer’s movements and corrects them by gently nudging the wearer, thus giving real-life feedback. (Move). I have included Move in this review, because it is a great example of a wearable that truly aims at making technology adhere to the movement of the body and not the other way around. Move is aimed for all kinds of precision sports such as golf, yoga, Pilates etc. where precision of the body is key to success, but Move can also be used as a help to alleviate chronic body pain caused by incorrect body posture. The data from the movements are sent to a mobile app, giving the wearer the opportunity to see her performance, set new goals or even share performances or movement with friends, family or the doctor if e.g. Move is being worn to prevent or repair an injury (Ibid.). Move is designed by Electric Foxy a company, run by Jennifer Darmour, who has an MFA from Art Center College of Design in California.

Move is not (yet)commercially available. (Electric Foxy).

Fig. 5. Move from Electric Foxy. Designed especially for pilates, yoga, dance and for preventing body injuries. Photo from Electric Foxy.

Another example of a monitoring and adhering to the body is the Numetrex heart rate monitor bra, which, as opposed to Move, is actually in production (Numetrex). The Numetrex bra monitors the wearer’s pulse and sends the data to a wrist watch so the athlete can monitor pulse at all times and gain optimal results from the training, be it weight loss or better overall performance. The bra does not monitor movement, only pulse.

The sports bra is made by knitting textile electrodes into the stretch band of 12 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

the bra, thus making sure the sensors constantly move with the wearer and sense the heart’s electrical pulse through the contact with the skin. The transmitter that sends the information to the wristwatch is placed in a small pocket in the stretch band and can be removed for washing (Ibid.).

Fig. 6. Numetrex sports bra. Photo: Numetrex.

As these examples show, monitoring of the body is of course very useful and helpful when practicing sport of any kind, but it can also be useful for a wearer who is trying to loose weight, walk the recommended 10.000 steps per day in order to be healthy, keep an eye on blood pressure, heart rate or other biometrics or trying to correct and old injury. However, as the next example show, monitoring the body can also be used in other ways.

In the project Social Skin, Seçil Ugur and Laura Duncker, research how humans can communicate bodily sensations and emotions through accessories instead of through verbal expressions. One of the designs in the Social Skin’s series is the necklace Skin+Bone, which reacts to the wearer’s heartbeat and thus also stress level. If the necklace measures a higher heartbeat, as a sign of stress, it slowly “crawls” closer to the neck and “strangles” the wearer (Social Skin). This will make the wearer aware of stress and nervousness and maybe help motivate to change the stress-full situation. And it might prompt the surrounding people to ask the wearer what is going on, that way giving the wearer a chance to share her discomfort. Physically, the wearer can pull the necklace and that way release it’s tension – and maybe also release own tension. Skin + Bone is an art project and is therefore not commercially available.

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Fig. 7. Skin + Bone by Seçil Ugur and Laura Duncker.

2.2.2 Protecting the Body

The above mentioned designs all monitor the body and use heartrate or body movements to help the wearer in one way or another. In this section I will describe designs that aim at protecting the body, not only by monitoring it, but also by monitoring the surroundings.

Even though protection the body is not the main reason for us to wear clothes, we do use it to protect our body against especially weather conditions, but also against injuries on the body, e.g. we wear a thick suit for riding a motorbike, in case we fall off.

By using sensors to sense outwards instead of inwards, wearables have also targeted protection of the body. By embedding sensors in clothing, the wearable can be used to sense things happening outside of the body, and thus help protect the body from dangers. The wearables shown in this section seem a bit harder and not so comfortable to wear as the wearables in the previous and in the next chapter, which might be due to the fact that they are a bit more on the functional side than on the body-focused side, even though they are still designed for the body.

One example is the UV-dress, a wearable that deals with the damages and dangers of UV-light we are facing today. The dress has a sensor embedded in the shoulder, which reacts to UV-exposure. When the exposure is too high, the sensor triggers small lenses on the dress to close, thus protecting the wearer from the UVexposure. The dress is designed by Danish company Diffus that calls the dress: “A symbolic dress, emphasizing today’s anxieties regarding environmental issues and an eager[ness] to protect ourselves from climatic threats.” (UV-Dress) 14

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Fig. 8. The UV-dress from Diffus. Photo: Diffus.

Another wearable that uses sensors to protect the wearer is the inflatable bicyckle helmet Hövding (Hövding). Hövding is a collar, worn around the neck containing an airbag that folds out when the wearer has an accident. The airbag is shaped like a hood, protecting the wearer’s head and is inflated by a gas inflator when sensors pick up abnormal movements of the bicyclist’s head (Ibid.). Inside Hövding is also a black box, which records 10 seconds of data on the bicyclist’s movement patterns during and before an accident. Hövding is available for €399.

Fig. 9. Hövding uninflated on the left, inflated on the right. Photo: Hövding.

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By integrating sensors into clothing, designers are elaborating on the functions of clothing, in many ways literally making the clothing an extension of not only the body, as Quentin Bell describes it (see introduction), but of the actual senses of the body. Designers are even giving the body extra senses, so it can sense outwards and warn itself of dangers such as e.g. excessive UV-light.

2.2.3 Communication

Another way of integrating and using sensors and monitoring in clothing is to make the clothes able to communicate, not just betweent the wearable, the surrounding and the body as the above mentioned examples, but also between other bodies, which I will show examples of in this chapter.

Communication is a basic need for humans. We all need to communicate, and with new technologies this has become easier in terms of especially distance and speed of communication. Many wearable designers have looked at how we can communicate by other means than a mobile phone and thus embedded means of communication into clothing. What the designers have taken into consideration is body language and the everyday interaction we have with the clothes we wear, and managed to use this as part of the design and the functionality.

One example is the Hug Shirt (Hug Shirt), designed by CuteCircuit, meant to make the wearer able to receive a long distance hug. The wearer sends a hug by embracing herself wearing the shirt in which there are sensors that feel the strength of the touch, the skin warmth and the heartbeat of the sender and recreate these sensations in the shirt of the receiver. A hug can also be sent without both people wearing a shirt, a hug can be sent via a mobile phone as easy as sending a text-message. (Ibid.). The Hug Shirt was awarded one of the best inventions of the year by Time Magazine in 2006, but has yet to be put to production (Time).

Fig. 10. The Hug Shirt by CuteCurcuit. Photo by CuteCurcuit.

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Another example of a communicative wearable is Ping, a garment that connects wirelessly to the wearer’s Facebook account. Ping uses the “natural gestures” that are built into a garment such as zipping, buttoning, tying ribbons or in this case lifting up the hood (Ping). By lifting or putting down the hood the wearer can update her status on Facebook or send a message. In the shoulder is integrated technology that allows the wearer to receive messages or status updates by being “tapped” on the shoulder. Ping is made by the company Electric Foxy, that also has designed Move.

Fig. 11. Ping – the social networking garment. Photo: Electric Foxy.

The wearables in this section are all in one way or another using some of the many sensing capabilities of the body, or even expanding on them by adding new senses and features to what the body is capable of doing. However, when looking at the aesthetics, they differ quite a lot and some more than others take into the consideration, that the main feature of clothing is to express ourselves. Some of the wearables are clearly aiming at being an everyday wearable with their aesthetics, such as e.g. Ping and the Hug Shirt, but these have not been put into production yet. Other wearables are meant for specific use, e.g. Hövding for biking and the Numetrex Sports Bra for sports, which is also very clear in their aesthetics. And others again are made for research or as one-off art projects e.g. Skin+Bone and the UV-dress. Even though all the wearables take aesthetics into consideration, their primary focus is not aesthetics and they are not designed for the everyday functionality of clothes; the aesthetic expression.

In the next section I will take a look at some wearables that are designed for an aesthetic, expressive everyday purpose, which I consider one of the most important factors in regards to making wearables viable on the mainstream market.

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2.3 Aesthetic wearables

In the field of wearables there are not many companies that actually sell wearables made for everyday fashion. As have been seen in the previous subsections, most wearables are made for sports, communication or protection and a lot of them are one-offs that are never put into production. When making wearables with the focus of being an aesthetic expression, there are at least two approaches; one is to make haute couture or performance wearables that are only worn for a very short time, and where aesthetics are more important than comfort. Another is to make wearables for an everyday purpose, where comfort and aesthetic expression are likewise important.

2.3.1 Haute Couture

Haute couture is a classic, French form of fashion, where elaborate handembroidered and expensive dresses are made in one-offs for the runway as showpieces made to attract attention to a brand (Jones 2005). Or they are made for wealthy women who want to wear something no-one else can get their hands on. In wearables design, haute couture is also used, but now in combination with technology, making it haute tech or tech couture as it is often described on e.g. the renowned wearables blog fashioningtech.com.

The examples in this section have been chosen from a wide range of designs, seeing that when reviewing wearables, it seems quite a lot of them fall into the category of haute tech – they are only made in one-offs and they are very elaborate in their expression and their storytelling, making them balance on the the border of art and clothes. The two examples I have chosen are some of the more famous and often mentioned in the world of wearables.

One of the first designers to design haute tech pieces is the fashion designer Hussein Chalayan, who has made quite many different haute tech wearables. One example is the five showpieces featured in fashion designer Hussein Chalayan’s Spring/Summer collection from 2007 (Chalayan). The showpieces were dresses that by the use of technology, could alter silhouettes and shape, depicting the 20th century’s fashion from 1906-2007 (One Hundred and Eleven). The dresses were made in collaboration with the London based engineering company 2D3D and featured quite a lot of technology (Ibid.). As can be seen in fig. 12 the dresses are not meant for everyday wear, but they are quite good examples of what aesthetics and technology can do when put together, only for the purpose of aesthetic expression and storytelling.

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Fig. 12. From Chalayan’s collection One Hundred and Eleven from S/S07.

Photo: Chalayan

Another example of haute tech is Pseudomorphs by Anouk Wipprecht (Pseudomorphs). But whereas the pieces from Chalayan’s collection One Hundred and Eleven are not controllable by the wearer, but controlled by remote control, Pseudomorphs is a collaboration between technology and the wearer, who can use technology as a co-creator of the aesthetics and as a way of transforming the dress (Ibid).

Pseudomorphs is made out of white felt and has an electronic accessory with tubes leading from the pockets to the top of the dress. The neckpiece connects via the tubes to the control valves allowing ink to be pumped through the tubes and onto the dress, thus coloring the dress in a completely unique way, depending on the amount of ink, the color and the movement of the wearer, which might cause the ink to drip in different places (Ibid.). Since the accessory controlling the coloring of the dress can be taken off and put on another dress, the final design is actually a regular dress, not a wearable, with no technology embedded thus making it quite customer friendly and wearable as an everyday dress. The designer, Anouk Wipprecht perceives technology as something we should use in symbiosis with the body, as an extension and sometimes a transformation of ourselves. Wipprecht calls this Fashion 2.0 and has created several dresses that are collaborations between the wearer, the technology and the dress (Wipprecht).

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Fig. 13. Pseudomorphs by Anouk Wipprecht. Photo: Wipprecht.

These two examples do not have much in common, except from the fact that they were created for fashion shows and not for everyday wear, although Wipprecht’s dress actually is both comfortable and aesthetic enough to be worn as an everyday attire. However, if we take a look at wearables, that are designed to be worn as everyday clothes, they have quite a lot in common.

2.3.2 Everyday, Aesthetic Wearables

To my knowledge there are only three companies that make wearables for a purely aesthetic, expressional and commercial purpose meant for a mainstream audience. These are MOON Berlin, CuteCircuit and 3lectromode. All three companies aim at making wearables for an aesthetic, everyday context and all three companies use LEDs as their main aesthetic means of expression.

For MOON Berlin, the main idea is to combine lighting and fashion in “a sensitive way.” (MOON Berlin), and to move fashion to a new level by integrating lights in clothing made for everyday/night wear and not for one-offs (Ibid.). All the garments are produced in Berlin and only in quite small quantities. The collection from 2010 consists of quite many different styles, mostly dresses, but also some pants and some clutches. All the clothes are made of silk and with integrated LEDs (see fig. 14).

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Fig. 14. Two of the dresses from MOON Berlins 2010 collection. Photo: MOON Berlin

The London based company CuteCurcuit calls themselves “A global leader in interactive fashion” (CuteCircuit A). CuteCurcuit has three different collections; a prêt-a-porter collection, an haute couture collection and their special projects for performers such as U2, Laura Pausini and Katy Perry. CuteCircuit are also the designers behind the Hug Shirt, described in section 2.2.3, but the Hug Shirt is not commercially available. All of CuteCurcuit’s commercially available designs are based on the use of LEDs (fig. 15).

Fig. 15. The Super Twirkle Mini Dress and the K-dress, both from CuteCurcuit’s prêt-àporter collection. Photo: CuteCircuit.

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Also the company 3lectromode from MontrĂŠal uses LEDs as the main means of aesthetics, but whereas the designs from Moon Berlin and CuteCircuit are readymade garments, the designs from 3lectromode are either sold as garments or as ready-made kits that customers can assemble themselves (Etsy and 3lectromode).

Fig. 16. Two of the styles from 3lectromode. All featuring LEDs. Photo: 3lectromode.

2.4 The Wearables Landscape Today; What is Missing?

This chapter has laid out the field of wearables as it is seen today, but also with a bit of a historic look back. I have pointed out the wearables I think are representative for a broad range of different categories within the field.

As I introduced in the beginning of the chapter, the field is immensely broad with products ranging from jewelry-like accessories such as Skin+Bone and Shine, to technological enhancements as Glass by Google to haute couture and mainstream wearables. At a glance, it seems nothing is missing in the field, however, mainstream customers still do not have access to most of these products, meaning, we do not see wearables on the street and as part of our everyday lives.

If we look at the products that are actually available for mainstream customers, we have Glass by Google, LilyPad, HĂśvding, Shine and the products from CuteCurcuit, MOONBerlin and 3lectromode.

All of these products hold very different aesthetics, functions and purposes, but if we take a closer look, there is only one wearable, the Numetrex Sports Bra, where 22 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

the technology has been woven into the fabric, as Weiser predicted. Glass, LilyPad, Hövding, and Shine, are all based on technology and not of fabric, meaning, they are actually not meant to be worn on the body like clothes is worn on the body – they are meant to be worn like accessories.

If we think about the main feature of clothing; the need to express oneself aesthetically as an individual and as someone belonging to a group, there are not much of that either in Glass, LilyPad, Hövding or the sports bra. Glass makes people look quite geeky, the LilyPad is actually not a wearable, and Hövding and the Numetrex Sports Bra are meant to be worn only in a specific context.

This leaves the three companies that produce wearables made of fabric and with the specific aim of wearing on an everyday basis; CuteCurcuit’s prêt-à-porter line and projects from MOONBerlin and 3lectromode. The designs in all of the three companies are based on LEDs and to some degree embroidery, meaning they rely on the same type of aesthetics, even though the designs differ. This means, that the coupling of technology and textiles, in the field of everyday fashion is merely focused on the use of lights sewn on fabrics as materials to create an aesthetic look.

However, wearables with lights as an aesthetic feature seem quite far from the aesthetics in the fashion that we usually see in the mainstream. Mainstream fashion is largely based on fabric or other materials reminiscent of fabric and the use of textile techniques such as embroidery, weaving, printing, knitting etc. So far, we have yet to see H&M, Vero Moda, Zara or other high street brands come up with dresses that features lights.

One could argue, that fashion is also about renewing and modernizing the existing e.g. by using LEDs, but clearly the use of LEDs have (not yet), been a major breakthrough for the aesthetic expression in fashion, despite several famous people, singers and actors alike, who has promoted wearables with lights.

The aim of this chapter was to investigate what is missing in the field of wearables, in order to understand, how wearables can become part of our everyday wardrobe. So in conclusion; what seems to be missing in the field of wearables, and what might actually be the key to bringing wearables to the everyday consumer, seems to be wearables with an everyday aesthetic in both materials – in form of fabric - and expression. Wearables that adhere to the everyday context and function, we already use clothes for; to wear something comfortable meanwhile expressing identity and individuality.

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Chapter 3. Method Proposal for Designing Fashionable Wearables

“The killer app for wearable computing is to convey personal identity information. This is called fashion and it is mostly visual”

Joanna Berzowska, researcher and designer of e-textiles and wearables.

(Berzowska)

Based on my conclusions from chapter two, I propose that what we are missing in the field of wearables, are designs that in their expression adhere to the everyday mainstream fashion and function of clothes; expressing one’s identity.

There seem to be a somewhat “missing link” in the area that can connect everyday fashion and technology. As we saw, there are wearables with aesthetics catering to sports, to technology, to haute couture and even wearables with the aim of being prêt-à-porter – high street fashion - but as concluded, most wearables found today, do not adhere to the everyday use of clothes and materials – the need for aesthetically expressing one’s identity and the need for adornment, as described in the introduction of this thesis. And the wearables that do aim at this, use LEDs as expressive means, which is quite far from the expression we see in traditional fashion, which is based on fabric, embroidery, printing, colors and other kinds of textile techniques and expressions.

Joshep L. Dvorak writes in his book; Moving Wearables into the Mainstream: “If a wearable system is to be embedded in a garment and that garment is to be widely accepted by the mainstream population, the focus must be on the garment, not the wearable system.” (2010: 67). He also describes some factors, which will determine if mainstream population will accept wearables: “…wearability, ease of use and compelling form factors are most relevant to design” (2010: xi).

A study by McCann, Hurford and Martin from 2005, researching design processes for the development of Smart Clothing, suggested four critical points on the way to comply with end-users needs:

• • • •

Demands of the body Demands of activity/end use Demands of the cultural context Aesthetic considerations.

There is as such no doubt as to how important the aesthetics (and the comfort) of wearables are, in order to comply with end-users needs. The question in this regard is, how do we find out, what aesthetics comply with wearables? How do we find out, what is comfortable when we are dealing with technology on the body? And how do we actually design an everyday aesthetic wearable?

If coming from an interaction design point of view, as some wearable designers do, an obvious answer is that we ask users, what they want and how they want to use a wearable. However, if we see wearables from a fashion point of view, 24

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the notion of the material the wearable is made of is embedded in the points by McCann et al. mentioned above, seeing that it is the material that will provide both the comfort, the wearability, and the form and visual aesthetic expression in any given cultural context. I therefore argue, that in order to design an everyday, aesthetic wearable, we should not ask users initially, instead we should look into how to design on the premises of the materials by the use of fashion methods, meaning, we need to explore the materials for their aesthetic and comfortable properties in order to design fashionable wearables with them. In this case, fabric and the computer are the most important materials to take into consideration, as they shape both the temporal and spatial form of the design (RedstrĂśm et al. 2010).

Fabric – the substrate material of clothes - is the most important feature of a fashion design, seeing that suitable fabric is the key to a successful design (Jones 2005). A fashion designer has tacit knowledge of different fabrics, which makes the designer able to judge before making a design, what kind of fabric would work and this tacit knowledge comes from working with the materials.

When we are designing wearables, the materials are likewise the most important things to ensure a good design, however, when we are designing wearables, we do not know the properties of many of the materials, because they are new, hard to come by and we therefore lack experience and tacit knowledge.

Moreover the different components making up a wearable constantly affect each other in regards to function and aesthetic expression both on temporal and spatial form, which will be explained later in this chapter. This all makes designing a wearable a quite complex design process with many different design materials and design variables to take into consideration.

In order to design a fashionable wearable, several considerations have to be made: Designing according to current fashions to make the wearable aesthetically pleasing, working with new materials that demand explorations before they can be designed with and combining unknown materials with fashionable aesthetics.

If we want to develop wearables in an everyday fashionable aesthetic context, I propose we combine fashion design tools with material explorations, thus making the design process a constant negotiation and iteration between aesthetic, fashionable expression and material explorations and properties. That way, we make sure that neither the materials, nor the aesthetics end up being neglected in the design process.

This chapter will first focus on the fashion methods I propose wearables designers should use when designing wearables. After that I will describe the materials that a wearable consists of and why designing through material explorations is important in regards to designing wearables. Finally I will conclude on how I propose these two methods should be combined.

3.1 Fashion Methods

I propose, that in order to design wearables that have aesthetics and comfort of the body as focus points, wearables designers should look to fashion methods and tools they can use in the design process. In doing so, the aesthetics of the 25 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

wearable are kept up to date or kept in a certain aesthetic that has a greater chance of appealing to a mainstream audience, than if the aesthetics are not cared for.

Moreover, seeing that the body is the focus, the designer should aim at making the wearable as comfortable as possible.

A fashion designer has at least three tools, she can use to design a collection: a moodboard, a target group, and design constraints. All three tools are used simultaneously and together form the starting point of a design.

A moodboard is a blueprint to point out the direction of a design. A moodboard is used to: “illustrate inspiration, colour palettes, fabric directions, silhouettes and textures” (Gaimster, 2010: 166). Moodboards are often made by cutting out pictures from magazines, taking pictures on the street or in stores, collecting a certain color palette by taking pictures in nature and can also include small pieces of fabric to feel the texture and see the color. Sketches of how the designs are envisioned are also included. A fashion design process for a high street brand starts by using a trend forecast from a trend bureau, in order to create a moodboard, but for independent fashion designers this is just an extra cost, and a moodboard might as well be made by the designer looking for trends on the street and else were as described above. Figure 17 shows examples of different kinds of moodboards.

Fig. 17. Examples of three different moodboards (Moodboards).

A target group is a group of people representative to the part of the population a designer aims her designs at. It could e.g. be boys age 13-19, which obviously will be very different from designing a collection for girls the same age. Different target groups demand different designs, because they are attracted to different kinds of trends: “Trends that are significant for one age group or social clique may not be suitable for another”. (Jones 2005: 30). If looking to high street brands, they all have definitions of their target group. The Danish brand Vero Moda describe their target group as: “… the fashion-concious, independent young woman who wants to dress smart and pay less. … the opportunity to follow fashion on her own terms.”

(Vero Moda). Another Danish brand, Object, describes their target group as: “She is positive and has a playful sense of fashion, and she loves multicultural style. She’s into retro and combines her fashionable styles with second hand and vintage items.”

(Object). Even though the two brands have more or less the same age group (20’s and upwards), the descriptions of these two types of women – the target groups are quite different, which the visual aesthetic expression of the two brands reflects 26

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– the clothing of course being central in this.

Most fashion designers also work with design constraints, which both moodboard and target group is also a part of. Design constraints can either be externally imposed on the designer in form of a budget, material properties, customer wishes, a sales team, or other factors, but most often, the designer herself decides on design constraints to help define a design space in which to navigate.

Initially, design constraints might seem like restrictions, but most designers will experience that the constraints actually help them be more creative. Constraints are a way to find an inventive/creative solution to a problem. E.g. the designer, who favors black, has decided that a collection cannot feature any black. This means that the designer has to think in other ways by using other colors, thus sparking creativity and inventiveness.

3.1.1 Fabric and Fashion

“Fabric is to the fashion designer what paint is to the ratios: the medium of creative expression. … Choosing suitable fabrics is the key to successful designing ….The designer must have a reasonable expectation as to how a fabric will behave; a material cannot be forced into a style or shape that is not compatible with its characteristics, both practically and visually” (Jones 2005: 122).

As Jones writes in her book Fashion Design (2005), fabric is a crucial part of any fashion design, seeing that fabric is the substrate every design builds on, both in terms of colors, texture and tactile feel. The two latter not only means a great deal in terms of the aesthetic expression, it also has a lot to say in terms of the comfort of the clothing.

A fashion designer might not always be involved in the actual design of the fabric, this is usually the responsibility of either the textile designer or the fabric buyer. However, independent fashion designers will most often buy their own fabric and thus have a tactile feel and knowledge of how the fabric will fall and drape on the body, how the colors are against skin tone and hair color, how the fabric feels to wear and how it should be handled, both in terms of designing and in terms of caretaking. A fashion designer will know, what textile techniques the fabric has been made by and what suits the design best; is it woven, knitted or printed textiles?

However, when designing with more complex, smart materials, such as wearables, the designer no longer have the option of buying the material off the shelf, let alone have a pre-learnt and tacit knowledge of the material. Moreover, the materials involved in wearables are not only fabric based, also computations and electronics are involved. This means, that the designer will have difficulties imagining what the material will be capable of and how it should be designed with, because the materials and their properties are unknown. It is therefore crucial, as I will explain in depth later, that the designer develops a tacit knowledge through material explorations, of the smart fabric or other smart materials in order to design with them.

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3.2 Computations and Wearables

Fabric is they most important part of fashion design, therefore I argue, that if we want to design fashionable, aesthetic wearables, we need to look more into the possibilities of fabric, instead of focusing on wearables with LEDs, which seem to be the dominant wearables these days as described chapter two. Computations is what makes a wearable a wearable and not a regular design, therefore, we also need to understand computers and processors on another level than a merely functional one in order to be able to design aesthetically and not only functionally with them.

3.2.1 Wearable Materials seen as Computational Composites

Whereas fabric functions as a substrate for fashion design, the wearable’s “fabric” or substrate also includes the microcontroller, seeing that without this, the wearable is a piece of clothes or regular accessory. It is the computer that makes it a wearable. Other materials are electronic components, a power source, conductive thread and LEDs and sensors.

In the book IT+Textiles, Johan Redström, who is a professor of design at Umeå Institute of Design, writes that the fundamental difference of designing with textiles/materials versus designing with technology, is that when we design textiles we do not necessarily design with a specific purpose in mind, we design to explore the possibilities of form, expression and aesthetics (Redström et al. 2010). In opposition to this, when we design technology, we design with a specific function or use in mind, which we most often probe into possible user scenarios and user expectations, thus getting very fixated on the function (Ibid.). The complication thus arises when we design something, which is partially material, partially technological, as a wearable – what should the focus be in the design process? The form, expression and aesthetics? Or the function and user-scenarios?

Redström suggests that we should perceive technology as a design material, but whereas traditional design materials primarily have spatial form elements, technologies like computation primarily have temporal form elements. (Ibid.). If we thus think of a wearable as a design made from materials that are both spatial (fabric, thread, buttons etc.), and temporal (microprocessor), the temporal design variable needs to be combined with something spatial in order to come to expression and we arrive at the notion of wearable materials as computational composites, described by Anna Vallgårda and Johan Redström (2007). Anna Vallgårda is assistant professor in the Interaction Design Lab at the IT University of Copenhagen.

Vallgårda and Redström explain computational composite as: “… computational technology is material (as distinct from being immaterial), it cannot really exist on its own in free form. To resolve its seemingly strange existence in-between the material and the immaterial, and its dependence on other materials for its presence, we propose thinking of it as a type of composite: that computational technology is a material, which we have to combine with other materials in order for it to become a material we can use in design practice.” (2007: 2)The thought might seem 28 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

abstract, but Vallgårda and Redström argue, that the properties of a computer can be compared to the properties of aluminum in its raw form (2007). Aluminum is a composite material in the way that only through alloys with other metals does it receives the strength and flexibility it is known for (Doordan, D. P. in Vallgårda and Redström 2007). The same way, the computer needs to be combined with other materials for the computations to have an impact and to come to expression (Vallgårda and Redström 2007 and Redström et al. 2010). Redström et al. writes: “The results of computational processes are evident to us through displays and through other devices … In other words, temporal form elements need to be given some kind of spatial presence in order for us to be able to perceive and thus use them” (Redström et al. 2010: 25).

If we as designers, understand the computer as part of a design material for wearables, I propose, along with Vallgårda and Redström, that we understand the computer on other terms than what we usually do. Instead of the computer being understood as a tool for functionality, the computer can be understood as a material that can convey visual aesthetic expressions that can change over time, thus giving the wearable not only a spatial form, but also a temporal one. And as Redström et al. writes: “… there is nothing about computation per se that requires us to use typical LCD or CRT screens to display the results. The basic requirement is for some kind of dynamic spatial surface capable of displaying the temporal structures that such computation generates” (Redström et al. 2010: 25). This means, that we are free to use any kind of material we wish in combination with the computer.

In a wearable this means, the textiles can become a visual means to express the changes in the computer and the wearable material can be seen as a computational composite: “…temporal form as manifested through some kind of spatial ‘surface’” (Redström et al. 2010:25). That way, the computer becomes a design material to be explored as other materials, and it opens up the design space to include temporal aspects, giving a whole new set of design variables to work with.

If we follow this thought, I propose that we as wearables designers should explore the possible visual aesthetic expressions we can get by using a computer in composite with textiles and textile techniques to see what kind of temporal expression we can make in the spatial surface.

In the next chapter I will show examples from three designers who use textile properties, materials and techniques in combination with computations. As will be seen, two of the three designers work with two dimensional designs as opposed to three-dimensional, body centric designs, however, these three examples were chosen because the designers have used textile and craft techniques in combination with computation, and I think we as wearables designers can learn a lot from this approach to designing with these materials.

3.3 Combining textiles and technology

The designs in this section are important pieces in the field of textiles and technology, because they reveal properties about materials and techniques that 29 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

wearable designers might be able to use both as inspiration for designing wearables, but also as inspiration of how to explore textiles and technology.

3.3.1 Blip - Maggie Orth

Blip is a wall hanging designed by weaving with threads that have been dyed with thermochromic inks (inks that change color when heated) in combination with conductive threads (see fig. 18). When the conductive threads are turned on, they heat up, thus changing the color of the wall hanging (Blip).

Fig. 18. Blip by Maggie Orth. A textile installation. Photo: Orth

Maggie Orth is the founder and CEO of the company International Fashion Machines (IFM). Whereas Orth in her own practice focuses on working with artistic textile wall hangings, IFM is a curious combination of both handcrafted art pieces, DIY kits for taking home, and handcrafted, soft electronics for the home, e.g. light dimmers.

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The works of both Orth and IFM overlap, and all have their offset in textile explorations by using traditional textile methods such as embroidery, hand tufting and weaving and textile coloring in combination with smart materials such as thermochromic inks and conductive threads. By working with the integration of textiles and technology, IFM and Orth challenges the perceptions of technology as something, which is thought to be mass-produced, functional and male, and textiles, which are seen as being handcrafted, decorative and female. (Orth B).

Moreover, the temporal aspect of working with the computer as part of a design, as described in section 3.2.2, is also something Orth uses in her work. In the description of the artwork Blip, she writes: “BLIP is one of seven pieces in the “moving toward stillness” series. Color change textiles have a finite working life. Over time, as the piece runs, the bright colors are burned onto the surface of the piece, creating a permanent record of software and physical artifact acting together. … The electrical materials of the piece … bring life, energy and motion to what is normally still.”

(Blip).

3.3.2 Spår - Linda Worbin

Spår is a woven carpet, which lights up when someone walks on it (Worbin 2010). Electroluminescent wire and wool are woven together into a carpet, which also has five pressure sensors embedded underneath. When someone walks on the carpet the pressure sensors are activated, turning on the electroluminescent wire (see fig. 19).

Fig. 19: Spår. Photo: Smart Textiles Design Lab

Spår is part of the project Functional Styling, where Linda Worbin, Anna Persson and their design team worked on a series of three carpets using smart ma31 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

terials in collaboration with Swedish carpet company Kasthall AB (Worbin 2010).

Spår also targets the temporal aspect of working with computers and textiles; “As a person walks on Spår, the footsteps leave traces as white and turquoise light stripes in the carpet. Spår looks like an ordinary woven carpet but is able to show that someone is, or has been, walking by lately.” (Spår). Spår thus tracks and visualizes the presence of a person, but only for a certain amount of time.

Linda Worbin is a textile designer and senior lecturer at The Swedish School of Textiles in Borås. She explores design methods and design techniques for new, smart materials such as e-textiles and computational technologies. Worbin proposes, that instead of thinking conventionally during a design process of textile patterns, a designer who works with e-textiles and smart materials should instead be aware of what happens in the design process and allow herself to follow suit instead of trying to control the process (Worbin, 2010).

3.3.3 The Crying Dress - KOBAKANT

KOBAKANT is a collaborative collective formed in 2006 by Mika Satomi and Hannah Perner-Wilson that works with DIY projects (howtogetwhatyouwant).

KOBAKANT views e-textiles and the surrounding technology as a new form of craft – E-textile craftsmanship - referring to ”the skilled craft of individuals experienced in the use of the materials and tools involved.” (Satomi, Perner-Wilson, 2011). KOBAKANT call themselves - “future master craftspeople”, where the emphasis is put on “the potential for innovation and novelty, associated with a workmanship that is risky and geared towards quality.” (Ibid.) When talking about a workmanship, which is risky, Satomi and Perner-Wilson are referring to David Pye and his defintion of workmanship, where the result and the quality of the product is always at risk and completely dependent on the crafter and her skills (Ibid.).

KOBAKANT has mainly focused on two-dimensional craft-designs, but in 2012 they created “The Crying Dress” (Crying Dress), based on what they have learnt through their material and crafting explorations, which truly emphasizes the importance of these two aspects of creating wearables. The Crying Dress works by embroidered loud speakers with conductive thread and sensor that are triggered when they become wet – when the wearer cries and her tears drip on the dress, the dress mourns with her (Ibid.).

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Fig. 20. The Crying Dress by KOBAKANT. Photo: Plusea.

As can be seen from these three examples, there are many ways of working with embedding technology into fabric by using textile techniques and there are many different ways of combining smart materials with “regular” materials and techniques. In Blip, the techniques are dying yarn and combining it with a different type of yarn to initiate color changes. In Spår, electronics have been woven into the carpet alongside the textile materials, and in The Crying Dress, it is the use of embroidering conductive thread that makes the loudspeakers work. In the next section, I will elaborate on why materials and techniques are one of the keys to designing wearables.

3.4 How to Work with Materials and Techniques

As we have seen, materials and techniques are a grand part of actually making a comfortable, fashionable wearable, seeing that materials hold the key to both the aesthetics and the comfort. Therefore when working with unknown materials, fashion methods are not enough to create a fashionable wearable, the designer must also look into material explorations in order to design through the materials as was seen in the previous three examples. Moreover, the materials need to be explored according to the technique the designer wishes to apply; is it weaving with conductive threads and sensors? Is it printing with thermochromic inks? Or knitting with thermochromic dyed thread, conductive thread or textile sensor? But what are good ways to explore materials and techniques that might be unknown?

The Bauhaus designer, Annie Albers, who worked in weaving, printing and jewelry making writes; “We come to know … that we do not clearly know where we will arrive in our work, although we set the compass, our vision… We have plans and blueprints, but the finished work is still a surprise. We learn to listen to voices: to the yes or no of our material, our tools, our time. We come to know that only when we 33 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

feel guided by them [our material, our tools, our time] our work takes on form and meaning, that we are misled when we follow only our will. All great deeds have been achieved under a sense of guidance.” (Albers 2000: 26).

What Albers proposes is, that designers use materials, tools (which includes techniques) and time, as guidance in the design process instead of only following a blueprint as their guide. If looking at this proposition in the context of designing a wearable, our materials are all the materials a wearable is made of; fabric, electronics, thread, conductive thread, microcontroller etc. Our tools are what we use to construct and explore the materials with, it could e.g. be exploring weaving techniques for weaving with conductive thread or software programs for programming the computer embedded in the wearable, but a tool is also the aforementioned blueprint – an idea of which direction we wish to go with the wearable. Blueprints for fashion designers are e.g. sketches, design constraints, moodboards, color palettes used to set a direction and a mood for the designs. The time frame that Albers suggests to work with is a little more abstract, but I think she means that we should take the time to explore the materials and the design until we are completely satisfied with it, instead of rushing it to be done, a proposition that in many cases will not be applicable due to deadlines, but which we can certainly strive for.

Donald Schön, professor and researcher, writes in the book, The Reflective Practitioner, that: “I shall consider designing as a conversation with the materials of a situation” (Schön 2006:78). Schön, having researched several ways that practitioners operate, both in and out of design fields, also talks about how the designer “reflects-in-action” (Schön 2006). By this, Schön means that a design situation will invariably produce consequences other than those the designer intended and therefore, the designer has to reflect-in-action; “He [the designer] shapes the situation in accordance with his initial appreciation of it, the situation “talks back”, and he responds to the situation’s back-talk.” (Schön 2006: 79). I find this to be the same as Albers who works with the voices and the yes and no of the materials. When the materials says no, the designer has to “talk-back/react-in-action, and inventively circumvent the no to a yes.

Schön has a researcher’s approach to materials and to designing. He is an observer, whereas Albers is a practitioner, with a practitioner’s hands on approach to materials. However, they agree on how to deal with materials, which I find makes their approach a very valid one when working with materials.

But how, then, does this talking back to the materials actually take place?

Schön writes, that reflection-in-action involves experiments of three different kinds, which he defines as exploratory, move testing and hypothesis testing. Exploratory is how we get a feel for new things by playing and probing them. Move testing experiments are deliberate action with an intended goal or an end in mind.

And hypothesis testing, Schön explains, is testing hypotheses or ideas, to see which one will prove to be true. What sets apart science experiments and practice experiments, is that science experiments are most often undertaken in a confined lab environment and with only one approach at a time, whereas practice experiments take place in any practical situation and is most often a mix of all three experiments (Schön 2006).

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A newer approach comes from Vallgårda and Bendixen, who describe design research as a question, an operationalization of the subject matter, and an evaluation of the result (2009). The question they say, can be anything from a hypothesis to a vague idea, but this question sets the scene the following actions. The operationalization is: “…the action that engages the subject matter in an eligible manner and through the subject matters’ resistance gives us access to knowledge about it.”

(Vallgårda and Bendixen 2009: 1). They define the evaluation as a correlation of the question and the result of the operationalization. The result of the operationalization might end up in a reconsideration of the question, or even an answer. The evaluation depends on both the question and the form of operationalization undertaken (Vallgårda and Bendixen, 2009).

If we sum up these approaches to designing through materials up, the conclusion is, that in order to design through materials, we need an initial question/ hypothesis or notion, which we explore through the materials involved in the design, before evaluating the final result in correlation to the question asked and the materials used. The operationalization will involve several forms of experiments as Schön argues, and they will all involve working with the resistance of the subject matter in a reflection-in-action dialogue between the designer and the materials, as Schön, Albers, Vallgårda and Bendixen argue.

3.5 How to Combine Fashion Methods with Material Explorations

To sum up, I propose that in order to design a wearable that has aesthetics, which appeal to a mainstream audience, wearable designers should design through material explorations, as the practices of Maggie Orth, Linda Worbin and Kobakant, described earlier, but with fashion methods such as moodboards, target group, and design constraints as a starting point and also as tools of guidance in the process.

We should see the material of the wearable as a computational composite where the computer is the part of the material that makes a wearable. The computer allows the wearable to be designed not only in a spatial form, but also in a temporal one, opening up the design space to create more design variables, which in turn can make the design more exiting, but also much more complex. Moreover, by viewing the wearable as a computational composite, the computer embedded becomes a material for creating an aesthetic expression and not merely a functional one. Material explorations are therefore essential for finding out what aesthetic expressions the wearables designer can create by combining the computer with other materials.

In practice, this means, that a wearables designer should decide on a target group and set the aesthetic direction in form of a moodboard – this is the visual ground for the question, in this case; how can we design a wearable with aesthetics that appeal to a mainstream audience. If the designer wishes or if these are imposed externally, design constraints should also be taken into consideration.

Throughout the material explorations – the opearationalization - the designer should stick as close as possible to this aesthetic direction, meaning, the 35

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ideas the designer propose on the moodboard should be tested through material explorations. In working with materials, the designer must understand that not all aesthetic intentions set in the moodboard will be possible to obtain – the designer will meet resistance from the materials. However, if these resistances are grasped with inventiveness and the designer go back to the moodboard to evaluate the materials with the aesthetics - to talk-back to the materials and circumvent their no with a yes in an inventive solution - or revise the moodboard in accordance to what the materials can do, e.g. find new inspirations in current or classic fashions, I believe the designer will eventually reach a solution or maybe several to the question; How can we design a wearable with aesthetics that appeal to a mainstream audience?

The process is illustrated in fig. 21.

Fig. 21. The starting point is deciding on target group, design constraints and creating a moodboard to set the aesthetic direction for the design. Next come the material explorations, which then are valued in accordance with the starting point. If the explorations are not fulfilling the intentions and aesthetics set on the moodboard, the designer must go back to the material explorations, which then are evaluated once more and so forth. Seeing that the materials can probably only be manipulated to a certain extent, it might be necessary to revise the moodboard, but this must be done in accordance with the target group. Eventually, the designer will reach a point where a prototype can be made.

In chapter four I will show how this model can be executed in practice when designing a fashionable, mainstream wearable. The execution I have made is of course one of many solutions, seeing that the materials and techniques I have chosen will not be the same as other designers. But it is my aim that this design model can be guidance for other wearables designers in designing wearables with an everyday aesthetic and appeal than what we have seen so far.

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Chapter 4. Designing an Everyday, Fashionable Wearable

This chapter is a description of the execution of the design method I proposed in chapter three.

As will be seen throughout this chapter, the design process is a negotiation and iteration between the material properties and the aesthetic expression as illustrated in figure 21 in chapter three. In this case, it becomes evident, how the initial aesthetics chosen, must make way for the findings of the material properties and resistances, thus including a revision of the moodboard, as suggested in chapter three, could be a possibility.

4.1 Opening up the Design Space

This section describes the initial design process. First I will describe the constraints I worked with, then the moodboard and the target group will be presented. These three methods were used to define and confine the design space.

4.1.1 Design Constraints

I use design constraints in order to confine the area of material investigation and design. The constraints are results of the findings in chapters two and three, regarding wearables, aesthetics and fashion. The design constraints are used as a method to confine the design area and to distinguish the design I make from previous wearables designs.

Constraints:

• The wearable cannot contain LEDs.

• The wearable cannot react to uncontrollable stimuli from inside or

outside the body – the wearer should be in control of the expression

of the clothing at all times.

• The wearable is not targeted for art or performance, but for a main

stream fashion market and should aesthetically aim for this.

• The wearable should be inspired by current fashion and have an aes

thetic appeal to women who would consider wearing the piece on

either a festive occasion or as an everyday piece of clothing.

• The wearable have to adhere to comfort and demands of the body by

using textile as the main substrate.

I decided to work with thermochromic inks as the visual expression of my design. Thermochromic inks change color when heat is ap plied, and I wanted to control this color change with the use of a mi crocontroller.

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4.1.2 Moodboards

I made two moodboards for this project, one for silhouettes and one for patterns and colors. Both boards contain different sections with different forms of inspiration. The moodboards represent several solutions that I wished to test for the design, and as such, they represent the ideal end result. (please see fig. 22 and 23).

Fig. 22. Silhouettes and details for clothing.

The initial idea for the silhouette was to work with especially lasercut, but wadded materials, which are very much in fashion, was also an option. The two silhouettes are very different from one another, but I wanted to keep my options open and was very inspired by both expressions. The idea was also, that underneath the laser cut could be fabric with thermochromic ink, making it possible to change the color of the underlying layer. For the wadded designs, the idea was that some of the threads could be conductive and the clothes was printed with thermochromic ink, thus making the color change possible along the lines of the wadding. Also features of clothing such as zippers and buttons were at play. The idea was that they can be used as on/off buttons for the interactive part of the wearable, thus leaving the control up to the wearer instead of using sensors. The idea of using the natural features of a garment appeals to me, because it means that the wearer will have a 38 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

Fig. 23. Moodboard for printed patterns. natural interaction with the garment and will not have to understand new technologies.

For the print design, especially batik prints, but also graphic prints were very much at play. I was very interested in making a design on a black background with a color change on top of the black. Overall, the inspiration is quite big prints, covering the whole of a dress and the patterns are very elaborate.

4.1.3 Target Group

The target group for this design project is a woman between 25-35, who is interested in fashion and to certain extends in technology as well. She is neither a first mover, nor a laggard but somewhere between an early majority and a late majority as described by Sue Jenkyn Jones in Fashion Design (2005).

In this case, I characterize this as a woman who is neither particular techsavvy, nor extreme fashionista, but who dresses well, cares about materials and cares about a pleasing aesthetic expression. A woman who has her own style, but is inspired by current fashions, is interested in new technologies, but does not need the most cutting edge in technology. She shops in high street stores such as H&M, COS, Vero Moda, Top Shop and Zara. The woman targeted is a mainstream consumer with an eye for quality.

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4.2 Material Exploration – Thermochromic Inks

This chapter describes the explorations and experiments from the explorations of the thermochromic inks. The investigation of thermochromic inks and electronic components was done coherently over a period of three months, but I have chosen to describe the two separately in order to ease the reading. However, there will be overlaps because the testing was done with both materials in order to find out how they influenced each other.

4.2.1 Thermochromic Inks and Binders

Thermochromic inks come with many different properties that react to different temperatures. The ones used for this project have a changing temperature of 27° C, meaning, when the ink reaches more than 27° C, it will change color, either to transparent or gray, depending on the ink1. It is also possible to mix the thermochromic inks with pigment colors, which are permanent colors used for static textile printing.

The thermochromic ink and the pigment ink is always mixed in a binder in order to apply it to the fabric. Binders come with many different properties, for this design I tested three different kinds: the Sof-T MB 550 (Soft); The Sof-T White 200 (Soft White), and the D502. Soft is a transparent binder that cannot cover dark materials. Soft White is binder containing white pigment, which means it covers dark materials, but also means the colors become somewhat pastel-colored in their expression. The tactile feel is also a bit stiff, reminiscent of plastic prints on t-shirts. The D50 is a binder, described as: “A covering binder for clear colors. It is possible to make prints with clear, bright colors on dark background” (Spektrum).

As will be seen, this description did not match the result I got.

The techniques applied are techniques known from textiles design such as silk-screen hand printing, and using brushes and sponges to apply ink.

4.2.2 Thermochromic Inks – Initial Explorations

The initial explorations were unstructured and explorative to find out the properties and the resistance of the materials, but all the while keeping the ideas from the moodboards in mind as a goal to strive for. The focus was on testing the colors, mixed at random with the Soft binder, while noting down how much had been put in of binder and color in order to understand how the colors worked and changed.

The color was applied with sponges and paintbrushes, and tested on three different background colors; black, white and gray, to see what the differences would be. The heating was done with a hairdryer, which was the case throughout the design process, every time there was a need to test something fast.

1 The thermochromic inks for this project are from the Swedish company Zenit (Zenit).

2 The binders are from the Danish company Spektrum (Spektrum).

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Fig. 24. The initial explorations were very basic and done in order to get to know the properties of the thermochromic and the pigment inks.

The first resistance from the materials, was discovering in practice, what it means for the design possibilities, that most thermochromic inks become transparent when they are heated up. In combination with the Soft, transparent binder, this means, that when printing on a black background, the thermochromic colors can hardly be seen, neither when cold nor heated. For the design, this meant, that the initial idea of having a black background with colors changing on top of it might have to be discarded seeing that the colors would not be seen on top of the black fabric. Instead I tried to paint a larger piece of white fabric with black thermochromic ink. However, this revealed that when painting (as opposed to printing) on the fabric, the fabric becomes stiff and therefore not so comfortable to wear, so it was not an option to paint a white piece of fabric black, and use it for a complete set of clothing.

The next resistance was discovering in practice what it means to be; “mixing colours blindfoldedâ€? (Worbin 2010:162). There is absolutely no telling how the result of mixing thermochromic inks and pigment inks will turn out, because the complexity of the color changing depends on so many factors, that it is impossible to foresee the result. The factors at stake are the amount and the number of colors of the pigment ink, plus the amount and number of colors of the thermochromic ink and the on top of that, the change from cold to warm and back again. The only thing to be sure of is that the color will change back to its original when cooled down, but both the cooling and the heating can take a while. Worbin has described the change from hot to cold as A B A ( 2010). Nilsson, Satomi, VallgĂĽrda and Worbin has elaborated on this and included the transitions between the states so the change of color is described as: A-B-A. (Nilsson et. al. 2011).

All in all, the initial explorations revealed that working with state changing materials is like working with unknown constraints. Usual grasps on the process, such as sketching on paper or computer before printing to test the colors, cannot be done because the colors are too complex, thus all the sketching must be done during the exploring of the materials.

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4.2.3 Thermochromic Inks – Semi-structured explorations

Even though the initial explorations revealed that printing on a dark material was not possible without compromising the colors, I was still trying to follow my initial ideas from the moodboards. Therefore I decided to test with different kind of binders, thus trying a more inventive approach to the materials.

By using silk-screen techniques I explored how to make a bottom print with white pigment in the Soft White binder and overlay the exact same print with a darker thermochromic ink mixed with the soft binder. This means, that when heated up, the top print turns transparent, thus revealing the underlying white print. In practice meaning that it would be possible to print a color on black fabric because the color will not be printed directly on the black fabric but on the Soft White binder (fig. 25).

Fig. 25. Illustrating how the print-technique works. On the left – bottom print is Soft White Binder with white pigment, on top is Soft binder with thermochromic ink. To the right; first the cold state of the print, then the heated. The white edges around the red star illustrates how difficult it is to place the silk screen in the exact same spot twice.

Visually, this works quite well, but a big challenge to take into consideration for a final design, is how precise the overlaying of the exact same print in an old spot has to be (see fig. 25). Doing so on a black material is almost impossible, so doing it for a whole design seemed quite risky, considering the amounts of flaws a design might end up having. Even though the overall visual expression and the changing of color was satisfying, the Soft White binder creates a plastic, shiny look, a stiff touch and appears as a plastic print seen in cheap t-shirts, which was not the aesthetic and tactile expression wished for.

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Fig. 26. Testing with Sof-T White 200. Left is before heating, right is after.

As can be seen in fig. 26, the result was visually pleasing, especially the red circles worked very well. However, the tactile feel and the complexity of the printing method were not pliable to the design I wanted.

Parallel with the thermochromic explorations I was investigating the properties of the conductive threads (see section 4.5). These tests, together with the results from the thermochromic explorations, proved, that the initial ideas about wadded designs and laser cut textiles would not work. At least not in fulfilling the aesthetic expression I wanted to have.

4.2.4 Findings

None of the design ideas from my moodboard, worked out according to planned, so it was necessary to go about the design process in another way. Annie Albers suggests: “The material itself is full of suggestions for its use if we approach it unaggressively, receptively. It is a source of unending stimulation and advises us in most unexpected manner.� (Albers, 2000:38).

Instead of (aggressively) controlling the materials into doing what I wanted, the materials had to reveal their secrets for me. This meant discarding the moodboards and the initial ideas and instead let the materials guide the process into a design that both they and I could agree on.

Without having any initial expectations of what would be revealed or what the outcome should be like, I made a plan for much more structured experiments.

That way, the properties of the materials would be tested in a disciplined manner, without any prior expectations or goals to adhere to, I would merely observe the materials as both Worbin and Albers suggests (Worbin, 2010, Albers, 2000). This meant, that for a while I did not aim for a specific ideal from the moodboard, but when the testing was done, the results were weighed up against the moodboards.

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4.2.5 Thermochromic Inks – Structured Experiment

The approach taken for the structured experiment was to test the same three different binders, Soft, Soft White and D50, on three different colors of fabric; gray, white and black. For each binder and each fabric color, the same combinations of pigment inks and thermochromic inks were tested in order to register the differences and the pros and cons of the different background colors and the properties of the binders. Even though the Soft White binder had already proved not to be useful, I decided to try it once more. Seeing that the testing was done another way and with another approach, it might reveal to be useful and to add another aesthetics if put in another context.

Prior to the experiments, I made a structured test-method. The method was designed before the actual testing, as a testing tool to follow. The same nine tests were done with all three binders on three different fabrics; gray, white and black.

All in all this resulted in 81 test results with quite different expressions and changes. Please see fig. 27, 28 and 29.

Fig. 27. Figure 27, 28 and 29 should be read the following way: There is a bottom print, either made with pigment ink, with thermochromic ink or with a mix of the two. On top of that is another print, made with pigment ink, thermochromic ink or a mix. These different mixes can be made in a combination of 9 different outcomes, all with a different result when heated, which is shown in the last column. The pictures show the different results for all three binders in the cold and in the heated state on gray, white and black fabric.

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Fig. 28.

45 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

Fig. 29.

As can be seen from figure 27, 28 and 29, the complexity of the materials is immense and it is not possible to understand or remember all the different combinations and outcomes of the results. In order to understand the process, I documented the different colors and their changes. This turned out to be a key aspect of understanding the different color combinations, because they were so many and so complex that having all the information in the mind was not possible.

4.2.6 Conclusion of Material Explorations of Inks

Looking at the textiles completely heated for the first time, the even more infinite, endless possibilities when working with dynamic textile patterns were revealed, not only in changing of the colors, but also the interplay between the colors and the forms as can be seen from fig. 27+28+29. The visual expression can change completely in regards to the form and color, including depth and perspective and the combinations are immense, making the state changing materials extremely complex to work with. Nilsson et.al. have put this complexity into words: “When working with dynamic patterns it is not only colour that can be temporal, form is also a dynamic design variable‌ The considerations needed when designing a static pattern are still relevant when designing dynamic forms and patterns, but they are 46 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

multiplied. It is no longer just about building up one composition of forms but about building up compositions of compositions of forms.� (2011:4)

The last sentence is, in my opinion, a spot on description of the incredible complexity at stake, when working with dynamic textile patterns. However, I would like to elaborate on the complexity by describing the process as: Working with state changing materials in combination with static materials is about building up compositions of compositions of forms in composition with compositions of compositions of colors.

In regards to designing a fashionable wearable, the conclusion was, that when the thermochromic colors resembled the pigment colors in their cool state, but changed when heated, the most surprising and interesting designs evolved.

This seemed to hold the most potential for designing a fashionable wearable, when thinking about the aesthetics I had initially wanted on the moodboard (see figures 22 and 23). I would be able to work with different patterns, however not on a black background. And as will be seen in the next section, the elaborate patterns I had envisioned also had to be toned down quite a lot.

Fig. 30. The same binder, but different combinations of thermochromic- and pigment inks. Cold on the left, heated on the right.

What worked best was printing on white fabric with the Soft binder. The design would have to be done on a white/light piece of fabric in order to get a final design which was aesthetically pleasing for a piece of clothing. I would have to revise the initial ideas and moodboards and instead of a pre-conceptualized idea, the revised design would have to adhere to the properties of the materials.

In regards to mainstream fashion products, the processes involved in working with unfamiliar materials will most likely not be considered fruitful enough in a world, where the next line of fashion has to be ready from idea to store in a matter of 3-6 weeks. I will elaborate further on this in the final evaluation of process and 47

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product.

As a designer, one has to accept that by approaching the design process in an unfamiliar way, without no preconceived idea or blueprint of the final outcome, the materials will open up and reveal new opportunities, which can then be tested up against the initial ideas from the moodboard and the design constraints. Documentation is key, not for the sake of documentation and proof of process, but for understanding the properties of the materials.

4.3 Material Explorations - Electronics

The research described in this chapter deals with the findings in the research of electronic components.

4.3.1 Testing Conductive Threads

Parallel with the testing of the thermochromic inks, I tested conductive threads. The ones used for this project was from Karl Grimm; a bare cobber thread, a silver-pleated thread and a galvanized cobber thread (Karl Grimm). The threads have more or less the same properties, so using them in a piece of clothing is only a matter of the expression one wants – the difference is the color of the threads.

The testing was done by using the conductive thread as bobbin thread in a sewing machine (if used as upper thread it frays and breaks), while sewing directly onto the thermochromic ink. I had painted several pieces of fabric with thermochromic ink to have testing material.

The first explorations were done in order to find out the resistance of the materials and how it would be possible to explore and take advantage of this resistance in accordance with the aesthetics on the moodboard and the findings from the thermochromic ink explorations. Since the final aim of the material testing was to create a fashionable wearable, it was important that the conductive thread and the thermochromic inks worked together in the best possible way. This had to be taken into consideration during the testing.

Because the conductive thread would not be used as a means to hold the clothing together, as regular thread, but as a means to make the thermochromic ink react, I had to find out how the conductive thread was best put to use, which involved exploring other ways than only using it in the bobbin of a sewing machine.

One method was to use interfacing; ironing a piece of 80 cm conductive thread on the backside of a piece of fabric, between the interfacing and the fabric. The interfacing and the conductive thread worked very well. Powered by a 9V battery, the thread immediately changed the color of the thermochromic ink (see fig. 31). However, third time the setup was tested, the thread would barely heat up (see fig. 32). The conductive thread draws so much power, that the battery had run dead already. This problem of power turned out to be a quite significant problem throughout the design process and had a lot of impact on the final design result and the design decision. This will be elaborated in the following subsection.

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Not having truly realized the problem of powering the wearable, I decided to keep on testing the initial ideas from my moodboard. The first thing I tested was ideas of wadded design, to see if maybe smaller lengths of thread would work.

Fig. 31. Right; Ironing the interfacing. Left; Testing the conductive thread with a 9v alkaline battery.

Fig. 32. Already the third time I tested, the battery was out of power.

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Even though the lengths of the pieces in the wadded design was shorter, the 9V battery was not able to heat more than one thread up at a time, and the same thing happened when using two 1,5 V batteries3.

Moreover, the sewing machine made marks on the fabric, because it had to be sewn with the front of the fabric downwards in order to make the conductive thread in the bobbin appear on the front of the wadded design. Eventually the idea of a wadded design was discarded both due to power issues, but also to the fact that the fabric was ruined when sewing it and because I could not make a black piece of fabric as explained previously.

4.3.2 Power

The testing of conductive threads was done parallel with the testing of the inks. These tests revealed the many resistances in working with conductive threads in collaboration with thermochromic inks, one of the most significant being the issue of power, which is quite an important aspect of a computational composite.

The first tests proved that a 9v battery simply was not enough to power the threads. Moreover, a 9v battery is a large, bulky battery, not really suited for wearing anywhere on the body or on a dress. Testing with 2x1,5v batteries proved to be more useful, but still the batteries are bulky and not suited for wearing in a dress.

Sparkfun sells polymer lithium batteries (lipo batteries) that are quite small, but more powerful than regular alkaline batteries and during testing, these proved to be more useful (Sparkfun A). Moreover, lipobatteries are flat and light, have far more battery time than regular batteries and can more easily be integrated into a wearable than a bulky, 9v battery.

4.3.3 Revision

Even though the lipo batteries are a better option, they are still not powerful enough to power a whole dress through conductive thread, as envisioned on the moodboards. The initial ideas had all been to make larger pieces of clothing that were able to change color. The prints imagined were large, bold and colorful, likewise the silhouettes. As seen on the moodboards and described, I had envisioned wadded jackets that would change colors along the wadded lines, and beautiful laser cut dresses that would change colors underneath the laser cut patterns. This all had to be revised after testing how much battery power it takes to draw enough power through a piece of conductive thread in order to make a thermochromic print change color. In order to make a whole dress change color, the use of power would be so extensive, that the wearer would be surrounded by a large electromagnetic field, which first of all, probably would not be very safe, secondly, probably something not very many customers would like.

3 While it might seem irrational to use 2x1,5V batteries thus getting only 3V, as opposed to using 9V, the reason for this is the amount of ampere in the batteries – 1,5V batteries hold more ampere than a 9V, thus making the endurance of the battery longer.

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Fig. 33. Testing the wadded design. The machine marks are the white lines along the sewed black lines.

4.3.4 Heating Pads and Sensors

Seeing that neither the conductive thread, nor the thermochromic inks worked the envisioned way, I had to rethink how to make the thermochromic inks change color. Heating pads from Sparkfun turned out to be the answer. They are small, light, do not draw much power and proved to be able to change the color of the thermochromic inks quite well (Sparkfun B). When working with heat close to the body and close to textiles, it is important to make sure that 1) no one gets burned and 2) nothing is set on fire. The heating pad can get quite warm, so implementing a temperature sensor that can help it turn of and on will help protect the wearer and the textile. It would take quite a long time before anything drastic would happen, but implementing safety is important, especially in regards to customers approach to wearables and in regards to the making wearables commercially viable. The sensor is placed on the heating pad and programmed to switch off when the heating pad reaches 30° C and on again when it drops to 27° C, which is the degree when the color changes starts happening. That way the design makes sure the color is always turned on, when the wearer wishes, but without getting too hot.

4.3.5 Interaction with Garment

This garment is meant as an added feature to the wearer’s identity and personal expression through clothing, so the interaction should be simple and obstruct neither the wearer’s movement nor the functionality of the garment. However, as described in the design constraints, I also wanted the wearer to be in control of the expression of the garment by not using sensors to trigger the heat.

By using a feature that does not have much function but can be used also as decoration the interaction is intuitive and the design is simple. As can be seen in fig.

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36, working with a conductive button, conductive thread and testing by using an LED light worked smoothly. No matter what the design turned out to be, I decided to go with a decorative button as the on/off button.

Fig. 34. Testing the function of the button by using two 1,5V alkaline batteries, conductive thread, an LED light and a breadboard.

4.3.6 Conclusion of Electronic Explorations

The conclusion for the electronics is much like the conclusion for the thermochromic inks: the material explorations proved that the initial ideas and moodboards did not agree to what the properties of the materials had to offer. Instead of controlling the materials into what I initially wanted them to do, I had to listen to what the materials would and could do and change all initial ideas from the moodboards and revise the design possibilities accordingly.

4.4 Material Findings

To sum up, the findings from the material research, were the following:

1.

Thermochromic inks cannot be printed on a black piece of fabric

without compromising the aesthetics preferred for the final design

and in accordance with the initial moodboards.

2.

A full colored (painted) piece of thermochromic fabric cannot be

used in the final design without compromising the tactility and thus 52 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

the comfort of the fabric4.

3.

The complexity of the thermochromic inks and the pigment inks is

so immense, that it takes many material explorations, in order to

achieve a wanted expression.

4.

The expression found in this research to be the most interesting and

suitable for creating a mainstream wearable was the element of sur

prise when two colors, seemingly alike, turned into two different

colors, even though the pattern was quite simple.

5.

Conductive threads from Karl Grimm cannot be sewn onto a full

painted piece of thermochromic fabric by machine, because the sew

ing machine leaves marks on the fabric5.

6.

The conductive thread cannot be powered enough to control large

pieces of thermochromic inks in a wearable, seeing that the wearer

would carry a large electromagnetic field around herself. This puts a

limit on the amount of conductive thread that can be used.

7.

Working with a heating pad demands less power and works

well with the thermochromic inks.

8.

Regular alkaline batteries are not good enough, in regards to endur

ance, and comfort. Instead lipo batteries of 3,7V can be used.

9.

Using metal buttons in terms of interaction/on-off button works well.

I used these material findings to revise the initial moodboards and come up with new design ideas for the final wearable. This will be introduced below.

4.5 Revising the Moodboards and Making a Final Design

This chapter describes how I used the material findings in interplay with fashion theory and methods to design a fashionable wearable.

4.5.1 Constraints and Resistance

In this project, I initially decided on some constraints, but as described in the material research sections, the resistance of the materials proved to be the most defining constraint of all. The material resistance ended up eliminating almost all initial design ideas for the wearable. The ideas for the final design had to be revised, this time using the material findings to come up with an idea. The findings listed in the last chapter left the following options for creating a wearable with the materials used in this project:

4 In regards to this, it should be mentioned, that fabric being mass produced in a factory holds other options for softening the material, and thus the option of working with a full coloured piece of fabric is only not an option for this project.

5 This would most likely not be the case for a fabric printed in a factory, seeing that the process is industrialized and holds other options.

53 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

The printing will have to be done on light colored fabric.

Color changes will have to be small details, not a large piece of fabric due to limitations of power.

The color change will have to be done by the use of a heating pad or small amounts of conductive threads.

A simple pattern works, both in regards to form and color.

The interaction should be simple, like a button, and not obstruct the functionality of the clothes.

Small, but powerful batteries are preferred, both in terms of endur ance, but also in terms of the comfort and the safety of the wearer.

4.5.2 Revision of Design

Following the material explorations, I had to revise my design ideas, but still keep them fashionable and aesthetically pleasing for a mainstream audience. For the new moodboard, I found my inspiration in what Jones calls “fashions and style features” - fashion re-cycling where things that were in fashion x number of years ago return to being fashionable, however often with a twist or in another context (Jones 2005: 49). Jones mentions, among others, cowboy boots, platform soles, animal prints and the colors pink, turquoise and green (Ibid.). A current example in Denmark, are the classic navy- and Icelandic sweaters, which Mads Nørgaard recently brought back into fashion, only by adding neon colors to the lining of the sleeves or the zipper.

When looking at this discipline or method in fashion, I found, that combining something classic with something new and technological like a wearable, might not only be a great idea in regards to a new design, it might also be a great idea in terms of appealing to a mainstream audience. By mixing something classic with something new, a design appeals to many people, because they recognize something, but yet it is new to them. It is safe and comfortable, yet new and exiting.

According to Jones, classic designs are, among others, polo shirts, loafers, t-shirts, Levi’s 501 and colors like black and cream (Jones, 2005).

As a new design approach for the design of a fashionable wearable I decided to mix a classic design silhouette with fashion style, building on something recognizable, but also adding something new, all the while using the material findings.

4.5.3 Design for a Fashionable Wearable

This section is divided into four parts; the shirt, the textile pattern, the colors and the moodboard.

The Shirt

The shirt is a classic clothing object that we are all familiar with, thus making it largely acceptable among users. It comes in all sizes, shapes, patterns and 54

Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

colors and is used by all sexes. Shirts are often used for formal wear, especially seen on waiters or as a classic item underneath a suit. Shirts have a lot of connotations, seeing that it was originally an item for only men, especially businessmen. The shirt might be seen as an instrument to empower women in collaboration with the 1980’s fashion item, the power suit. In Voguepedia, the power suit is described as: “The power suit had two matching pieces - initially, just skirts on bottom, but later trousers were advised - in a color that meant business: black, gray, blue (navy or pale), or perhaps beige. … A white shirt … completed the look”. (Voguepedia).

A shirt has a lot of buttons used for function, but also used for decoration, which goes well with the results from the material investigations. A shirt has pockets, which can be used for both a lot of details, but in this case also for holding a heating pad. A final argument for using a shirt is, that the current fashion, when looking to high street brands, is the use of details on both pockets and collars (please see moodboard fig.37). Especially the details on the collars could be used as inspiration for working with small amounts of conductive threads.

The Textile Print

The houndstooth is a classic two-colored pattern, often black and white, but also comes in other colors. It is originally a Scottish pattern used for wool clothes, but has been a fashion trend quite many times during the 20th century. According to e-how.com, it has a cycle of 20-30 years, meaning, the pattern pops back into fashion with an interval of 20-30 years (E-how). This makes it a part of what Jones calls “fashion and style features” as described earlier (Jones, 2005:49). According to examiner.com, the houndstooth pattern is right now making its way back into fashion in the fall of 2012 (Examiner). This means that the trend started on the runway will probably now start making it’s way to the high street brands, making it to stores in the spring and fall of 2013. As can be seen in fig. 35, the spring collection from BikBok (a high street brand) for 2013, features houndstooth. The houndstooth pattern is thus not only a fashion and style feature, people will recognize and feel familiar with, it is also on the way back to mainstream, making it a suitable pattern for this exact mainstream wearable.

55 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

Fig. 35. Photo taken at BikBok’s window at Strøget in Copenhagen

The Colors

According to Jones, classic colors are black, navy, camel and cream, and fashion and style feature colors are pink, turquoise and green (Jones, 2005). For this project, colors were a great resistance of the material. After working with and experiencing the resistance and the constraints of the thermochromic and pigment inks during the material explorations, I had an understanding of what they were able to do and what not. This meant, that the color scheme could be designed by using pens, paper and also digitally on the computer, because I (to some degree) knew what was possible and what not. Some of the colors Jones mentions in her book could be used, thus creating a color scheme for the new shirts, while designing them on the computer. That way, a test of the houndstooth pattern and the color combinations in their cold and heated state could be tested quite fast.

Fig. 36. The colors, sketched on paper.

56 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

The Moodboard

The three above categories; the shirt, the pattern and the colors made way for a new moodboard.

Fig. 37. Moodboard for new design process. Emphasis on details.

4.5.4 Design Proposals

Figure 38 and figure 39 show the digital sketches of suggestions for the final, revised design of the shirt.

The designs are based on material findings of thermochromic ink, pigment ink, conductive thread, power supply and metallic, conductive buttons, as described in sections 4.3. Moreover, knowledge of current fashion styles and classic plays a part in the suggestion for the final design as can be seen in the moodboard, fig. 37.

Figure 38 shows what a fully printed shirt with thermochromic printed details on the pocket might look. By placing a heating pad in the pocket of the shirt and making the button of the pocket the on/off button of the pad, the color of the pocket will change when the wearer wants it to, thus creating a new, temporal and 57 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

spatial expression.

Figure 39 shows different design suggestions for working with embroidering small amounts of conductive thread into the collar. By embroidering conductive thread on the collar of a shirt printed with thermochromic inks, the colour around the threads can change. And seeing that the conductive thread is a bit shiny, it acts as a perfect stand-in for studs or other shiny materials.

Fig. 38. The different proposals for design 001. The top part is cool state, the bottom is warm state.

58 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

Fig. 39. Ideas for design 002, different ways of using conductive threads in the collar of a shirt.

4.6 Making the Wearable

I had to make the wearable by hand; from printing the fabric to constructing and sewing a working prototype. In regards to the amount of time, it was not possible to make all suggested solutions. This would have been possible, had the design research and process been part of a mainstream fashion company with textile factories with means to mass produce textiles and clothing.

4.6.1 The Fabric

The printed fabric for design 001 is hand printed by using silkscreen handprinting techniques. The fabric is poplin, a soft fabric made of cotton used for making shirts (Baugh 2011). I made four prints; one with black pigment ink, one with turquoise green pigment ink. Likewise, a black thermochromic ink print and a turquoise green thermochromic ink print. Small amounts of red pigment were mixed in the thermochromic inks, thus revealing the red pigment ink when the thermochromic color turn transparent when heated. The thermochromic printed pieces of fabric have the same color as the pigment printed pieces of fabric that way opting for the surprise element which I decided was the best design solution to embed in this wearable.

59 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

Fig. 40. The fabric while printing and the final fabric in heated thermochromic- and pigmented ink.

For the fabric for design 002, a full colored piece of fabric was needed for the collar, so the color was able to change (please see fig. 39). As the initial findings had revealed, a full colored piece of fabric was not comfortable, because the ink made it stiff and rigid, but seeing that the collar only needs a small piece of fabric and it is not that much in contact with the body, it seemed possible to use a painted piece of fabric as proof of concept. Also in regard to the fact that had the fabric been produced in a factory, there would be ways to make it softer than the possibilities I had for doing that. Design 002 is still a design in progress as can be seen in figure 43.

4.6.2 Electronic Circuits

For the shirt with the color-changing pocket, I used a heating pad from SparkFun Electronics with the LilyPad Arduino, conductive thread and two 3,7V lipo batteries.

By using the button of the pocket, the heat is turned on thus using the natural feature of the shirt and not compromising comfort or function. As can be seen in fig. 41, the LilyPad Arduino is placed on the inside of the shirt, making an extra pocket for the batteries. The heating pad and the temperature sensor will be placed inside the pocket on the outside of the shirt and all the elements will be connected by using conductive thread.

60 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

Fig. 41. The inside of the shirt, with the proposal for placing a pocket on the inside.

The pocket can hold the batteries, the LilyPad will be placed on the outside. The pocket should be removable, thus making sure the LilyPad and the batteries can be removed for washing.

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4.7 The Final Designs

The final designs work as a proof of concept of the initial idea of creating a fashionable wearable for mainstream fashion, through the design method described in chapter three. For design 001, the textile is silkscreen printed poplin fabric and the shirt is size 38. The pocket has color changing features that are activated by heat. In the pocket is a heating pad, which is activated by buttoning the pocket thus changing the color.

Fig. 42. The final shirt, design 001, changing from cold to hot to cold, read clockwise.

62 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

Fig. 43. Prototype of design 002. Not yet fully functional, but the aim is that the color around the embroidered points should change to white as seen in the picture on the left.

Design 002 is made by painting a piece of fabric with thermochromic ink and making this piece the collar of the shirt as seen in both figure 39 and 43. The design is not yet functional, but should be working as seen in figure 43.

If looking at the design constraints I set up for myself, I managed to adhere to all of them, except for one. My second constraint was that the wearable cannot react to uncontrollable stimuli from inside or outside the body. Since the thermochromic inks change to transparent when the temperature reaches 27째 Celcius, the shirt does react to uncontrollable stimuli. However, as a proof of concept of a method and as a proof of concept for designing an everyday wearable that uses fabric and not LEDs, the design works.

63 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

Chapter 5. Conclusion

This thesis set out to investigate the realm of the aesthetic and fashionable expressions of wearables in conjunction with technological possibilities.

I have provided an overview and review of different wearables in the field and concluded, that what seems to be missing in order for wearables to become mainstream, are wearables that cater to an aesthetic expression for everyday fashion, mostly made by fabric. Based on this, I propose a new design method, in which designers should mix methods from fashion design with material explorations.

Finally I gave an example of how the method I propose can be executed in practice in a design process. This resulted in a proposal for a collection, one functioning proof-of-concept and one not-yet functioning proof-of-concept. Within the design process I also propose how thermochromic and pigment inks can be explored by using a testing schedule. When using the schedule, the overview of the test-results becomes easier to understand and remember.

The strength of the method is, that it can be applied to many different materials, not only thermochromic and pigment inks. The important thing is, that the designer constantly holds the material explorations up against the chosen aesthetic ideal and find out, how the materials can adhere to this ideal and where the ideal has to listen to the materials and change accordingly. By using this method the designer makes sure that the wearable ends up with an aesthetic that the designer wants, in my case an aesthetic that adheres to an everyday expression.

One of the challenges of this method is, that for any new material a designer decides to work with, she will have to start from scratch in order to get to know the materials. For thermochromic inks, as well as other smart materials, the novelty of the materials cause a lack of tactile feel and knowledge of the materials.

The designer will therefore have to go through material explorations every time she designs with a new material, thus prolonging the design process compared to a design process where the materials are known. Designers usually acquire fabric by attending fabric fairs or shops where the different fabrics can be felt, seen and bought. If designers are to start using smart materials as they use fabric, they need to be able to feel and see the materials at fairs or presented by sales teams. This means, that e.g. in the case of thermochromic inks, extensive research will have to be put into the knowledge of what combinations of colors can be made and designers will have to be presented with these options, and possibly also the options of designing their own fabrics with the colors they want.

For the fashion industry, which is an industry that relies on fast transition and naturally on profit, this is an extensive and expensive research project to start.

This most likely means, that if we want to see wearables with a mainstream fashion aesthetic, we either have to find ways of developing smart materials for or in collaboration with the fashion industry, or wearables designers will have to learn how to use fashion methods to design fashionable wearables.

This also means, that the method I developed and used is mostly useful for independent wearables or fashion designers or for researching smart materials.

For the fashion industry, the method is most likely too time consuming and too 64 Marie Olofsen, May 2013 Wearables for Everyday Fashion

demanding in terms of rearrangement of the fashion system and industry.

However, if this method is to be used by independent designers and researchers, the knowledge acquired through the process of designing with new materials should be shared and be available to other, in order for it to be helpful in the greater scheme of developing wearables with a more mainstream appeal. This means that e.g. the schedules and tests I made of how the colors of the thermochromic inks change, have to be available to other designers, but in order for the knowledge to be useful to others, the schedules also has to include how much of each amount of ink and binder I put in.

If a designer is given a schedule similar to the one I made of how the colors are able to change, and how large of an area is able to change if using electronics, she will have the option of designing wearables on the computer, just as I was able to, once I understood how the colors could change. This means the process will be shortened quite a bit.

From a conversation with Linda Worbin in the fall of 2012, I know that there is research going on at the Swedish School of Textiles in Bor책s on how to mass-produce textiles with thermochromic abilities, however, it is essential, that the fashion and the textile industry also start looking into this if these materials are ever to become part of our mainstream clothing. And it is essential that the designers have a say in the colors of the textiles.

I propose, that if we want to see a move in the wearables field towards a more customer friendly and mainstream aesthetics, wearable designers, researchers and manufacturers will have to explore materials further to uncover their aesthetic properties, and in order to get to know and understand how to design with them. Moreover, they should share this knowledge with each other, in order to make the materials easy to come by and design with for both large brands and independent fashion and wearables designers. Wearables designers will also have to look to fashion methods and fashion aesthetics in order to design wearables with an everyday mainstream appeal.

One of the best possible scenarios for making wearables mainstream and fashionable is to include fashion designers and manufacturers of both fabrics and smart materials in the process of researching, designing and producing, that way making smart materials easier to come by and easier to understand.

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