” THESIS ” GRADUATE THESIS 2022 CAYLEE SACKS
WEEK 01 06 Textile Waste | “ The fashion industry as a whole is the second biggest polluter in the world, topped only by the oil industry” WEEK 04 16 Archigram | The Cushicle and Suitaloon WEEK 02 08 Upcycle / Upcycling WEEK 05 20 Jakpak and Hussein Chalayan WEEK 03 10 Duran Lantink & Upcycling continued WEEK 06 26 Upcycled Streetwear | “Protect the Urban Nomad” 2 GRADUATE THESIS 2022 CONTENTS
3 CAYLEE SACKS WEEK 07 32 Spacesuits Evolution, Advancement & the Bio-Suit WEEK 10 48 Intelligent Fashion highlighting Solar Fibre tech + Electronic & Smart Textiles WEEK 08 38 Emerging Technology & Additive Manufacturing WEEK 11 52 Rethinking the Fashion Show | “Why Phygital is here to stay & evolving” WEEK 09 40 Recycled Plastics & 3D Printing Technology WEEK 12 56 Thesis Project Proposal
4 GRADUATE THESIS 2022 STATEMENT
For Your Protection is a clothing line concept that integrates bullet-proof, tear-resistant clothing into a comfortable and fashionable wardrobe. Bullet-proof clothing already exists, soldiers and police wear bullet-proof uniforms every single day but they’re bulky, heavy, and stiff. Bullet-proof clothing offered to civilians is usually a slight variation on the militant theme with camouflage and hunting gear. A couple of companies have started making bullet-proof backpacks for children but they’re still bulky and a far cry from fashionable. We build cars and buildings with bulletproof glass for high-ranking officials, armed and emergency services, but civilian access to the same amount of safety is extremely limited, if available at all. I believe that the population most affected by gun violence deserves better options in self-care and protection. This will be possible thanks to emerging and existing technologies, like Dyneemaa high-end synthetic laminate fabric constructed from non-woven composites that exhibits resistance five times higher than Kevlar with an unmatched strength to weight ratio.
1. Environmental Protection Agency Annual Report 2019 2. Ibida 3. https://staiymagazine.com/is-upcycling-the-future-of-fashion/ THESIS STATEMENT
“Feeling unsafe” is present in the public and political sector as a phenomenon that affects everyone the same way, regardless of social and gender differences. The feeling of fear involves at least two dimensions: one, the way people refer to lack of safety in public space, and two, fear for oneself. The consequences of feeling unsafe can have negative effects on an individual’s personal life, and on the health of the individual. Both dimensions have been challenged and weakened through events in the public consciousness; and today the ability to physically occupy public space is more threatened and threatening than ever. The public world only works if people can appear there, and anxiety, discomfort or fear can destroy that or at least diminish it as a meaningful arena for common life and discourse
by Varnika Srivastava 5 CAYLEE SACKS
My thesis deploys techno-fashion in clothing to manipulate the wearer’s sense of safety to counter the contemporary fear-driven diminution of participation in public space. By incorporating armor into everyday fashion, I recognize the militarization and precarity of physical bodily presence in public life; and want to strengthen the public resolve to still take presence in public life despite psychological and real threats.
This thesis aims to explore the revolutionary interface between fashion, technology and personal protection by designing the chance for people to be in public space again without (as much) fear. This project is not a solution to gun violence in America, but a strategy to counteract the way violence erodes public life. I see the opportunity to bring culture, discourse, style, and design of public life back into action precisely in the places where gun violence has forced them to recede. My intention is to alter the relationship between the physical body and public space, thereby altering the perception of fear in public spaces. By introducing a new type of techno-fashion that allows people to feel confidently present in public space again. The project will be a proof of concept film written, directed, costume designed and produced by me that explores a day in the life of a college student who is forced to deal with a violent
My research has evolved from 3d printing armor into an emerging category of techno-fashion performance-wear.
MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP / Getty Images
6 GRADUATE THESIS 2022
Aerial view of used clothes discarded in the Atacama desert, in Alto Hospicio, Iquique, Chile, on 26, 2021.
September
TEXTILE WASTE
Deep in the Atacama Desert of Chile, new dunes are formingnot of sand, but of last year’s unsold clothing from around the world. Piled high atop the previous year’s fast fashion deadstock and unpurchased lines of clothes, these garments are usually filled with toxins and dyes and do not biodegrade.
THE
IS THE SECOND
In 2017, a documentary on the pollution of waterways caused by fast fashion found that tanneries were dumping toxic chromium into the water supply in Kanpur, India. The chemical then ended up in cow’s milk and agriculture products. All of that environmental cost doesn’t even account for endof-life pollution created by clothes. Unsold clothes are usually burned, buried or trucked to Chile. In all these scenarios, toxins contained in the garments are released into the air and underground water channels.
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Aljazeera estimated that up to 59,000 tons of clothes that can’t be sold in the U.S. or Europe end up at the Iquique port in the Alto Hospicio free zone in northern Chile each year. These are meant for resale in Latin America, but only 20,000 tons actually make their way around the continent. What doesn’t get sold in Santiago or smuggled and shipped to other countries stays in the free zone. It’s no one’s responsibility to clean up and no one will pay the necessary tariffs to take it away, Aljazeera
FASHION
The result is an environmental disaster that’s been largely overlooked — until now.
01WEEK
Unfortunately,reported.
What can you do? It is often stated that “only 1% of textile-totextile recycling is done globally”. The validity of this statistic is questionable, nevertheless we can say, fairly certainly, that the world could in fact recycle 85% of all its textiles and textile waste today. The technological advances that have been made, over the past few years, are in fact capable of taking on the recycling of complex textile compositions. The limitations that different textile recycling technologies are actually facing are significantly less related to technology than to a number of other market barriers. There are many ways to recycle and advances in recycling technology are on the rise; this thesis will mostly explore methods of upcycling.
BY THE
https://www.ecowatch.com/chile-desert-fast-fashion-2655551898.html
clothing may take hundreds of years to biodegrade, if at all. Municipal landfills will not accept the textiles because of the chemical products contained therein, NY Post reported. Therefore, eventually up to 39,000 tons of unsold and unwanted clothes get trucked to the driest desert in the world each year, where they literally blanket the dunes in layers and layers of discarded textiles.
THE INDUSTRY AS A WHOLE BIGGEST POLLUTER IN WORLD, TOPPED ONLY OIL INDUSTRY
8 GRADUATE THESIS 2022 Pliant Impact Puffer @nicolemclaughlin
A Circular Economy is where resources are used for as long as possible, getting the most value out of them while in use, then restored and repurposed when their use is over. Popularized by William McDonough and Michael Braungart in their 2002 book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. The cradle-to-cradle principle states a product should be designed either to have multiple life cycles or be biodegradable.[3] They state that the goal of upcycling is to prevent wasting potentially useful materials by making use of existing ones. This reduces the consumption of new raw materials when creating new products.
Reducing the use of new raw materials can result in a reduction of energy usage, air pollution, water pollution and even greenhouse gas emissions.
VERBUPCYCLE/UPCYCLING(present participle)
2. “Fashion interest as a driver for consumer textile waste management: reuse, recycle or disposal”. International Journal of Consumer Studies. 41 (2): 207–215. doi:10.1111/ ijcs.12328. 3. Claudia E. Henninger; Panayiota J. Alevizou; Helen Goworek; Daniella Ryding, eds. (2017). Sustainability in Fashion. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-51253-2.
02WEEK
Designers have begun to use both industrial textile waste and existing clothing like as a base material for creating new fashion. Upcycling has been known to use either pre-consumer or post-consumer waste or possibly a combination of the two. Pre-consumer waste is made while in the factory, such as fabric remnants left over from cutting out patterns. Postconsumer waste refers to the finished product when it’s no longer useful to the owner, such as donated Often,clothes.[1]people practice linear economy where they are content to buy, use, then throw away. This system contributes to millions of kilos of textile waste being thrown away. While most textiles produced are recyclable, around 85% end-up in landfills in the USA alone.[2] To live a sustainable life, clothing options opposite to the “throw away” attitude encouraged by fast fashion are needed. Upcycling can help with this, as it puts into practice a more circular economy model.
1. Beth Stewart (May 8, 2014). “Upcycling: The New Wave of Sustainable Fashion”. Weber, Sabine; Lynes, Jennifer; Young, Steven B. (March 2017).
To reuse discarded objects or material in such a way as to create a product of higher quality or value than the original.
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This is a significant step towards regenerative design culture where the end products are cleaner, healthier, and usually have a better value than the material inputs.
DURAN LANTINK SS 2021
In his 2021 Fall fashion show Lantink points out how he’s unpicked, restyled, and refashioned multiple piles of clothes lying around his studio which “used to be” garments by Balmain, Balenciaga, Prada, Proenza Schouler, Vetements, Marine Serre, and many more. “In the beginning, we started with stores to see how we could work with their deadstock to see how we could stop their clothes going into landfill. And that was the beginning of thinking how we could create a completely new form of business.”
Yet Lantink has also now come up with an ingenious plan for extending the buzzy fashion “moment” so that it can morph into potentially infinite new shapes for his followers. As we circle around his upcycled clothes, he announces the launch of a service on his new direct-towearer website. “When you’re fed up with something, you can click on two tabs. One, where you can resell. On the other, we will work with you to remake what you have to become whatever you like. So a coat can become a dress. A dress can become a shirt. A shirt can be trousers. Whatever you want!” People who are up for engaging with Lantink’s process are destined to be the happy recipients of fully documented online records of where their clothes originated, and how they’ve been altered over time: a personalized archive. That redefinition of being able to love and re-love clothes in a never-ending cycle restyled by a designer is something I’ve never heard before. I’m thinking just how much the idea of luxury fashion is about to be permanently altered by innovators like him.
DURAN LANTINK
Dropped: 20 May 2021 Edition: one Size: 36/38 EU Current composition: Micro stretch polyester mesh dress, 1980’s Burberry trenchcoat (sleeves), Sacai pleated cotton skirt-pants (skirt), Belgian military anorak (back pocket), found Louis Vuitton monogram coated canvas and Alexander McQueen PVC skirt (breast cups) 10
GRADUATE THESIS 2022 03WEEK
Vogue https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2021-ready-to-wear/duran-lantink
Dropped: 7 June 2021 Edition: one Size: 1970’sCurrentLargeComposition:Frenchmilitary knife vest, GmbH polyester parka (pockets), 1980’s Swedish military PVC raincoat (panel), Givenchy polyester parka (sleeves)
CAYLEE
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DURAN LANTINK FW 2021
GRADUATE(leg)THESIS
12 DURAN LANTINK FW 2021 Dropped: 19 July 2021 Edition: one Current composition: 1017 ALYX 9SM vinyl trousers, 1980’s Burberry trenchcoat
2022
13 CAYLEE SACKS13DURAN LANTINK SS 2021 Dropped: 24 June 2021 Edition: one Size: 36/38 EU Current Composition: Micro stretch polyester mesh dress, Off-White GORE-TEX rain jacket (sleeve), vintage bomber jacket (panels), Sacai cotton pleated skirtpants (skirt) CAYLEE SACKS
NICOLE MCLAUGLHIN x Hermes 14
15 CAYLEE SACKSCAYLEEGRADUATE THESIS 2022 @nicolemclaughlin
16 GRADUATE THESIS 2022 ARCHIGRAM
17 CAYLEE SACKS
ARCHITECTUREWITHOUTARCHITECTURE
In the 1960s, the architects of Britain’s Archigram group and Archigram magazine turned away from conventional architecture to propose cities that move and houses worn like suits of clothes. The Archigram style was assembled from the Apollo missions, constructivism, biology, manufacturing, electronics, and popular culture, inspiring an architectural movement— High Tech—and influencing the postmodern and deconstructivist trends of the late twentieth century.
18 GRADUATE THESIS TheARCHIGRAM2022CushicleandSuitaloonareapairofconceptual designs made by Michael Webb and published in the Archigram magazine in the 1960’s. The Suitaloon was an idea conceptualized later as an addon to the earlier Cushicle. It is “clothing for living in – or if it wasn’t for my Suitaloon I would have to buy a house” (A Guide to Archigram, Archigram Archives, pp 207). Whereas in the Cushicle the environment for the rider was provided in a carlike mechanism, the Suitaloon was imagined as a wearable inflatable space that would fit into the larger structure of the Cushicle. In this concept, the Suitaloon would provide all the necessary services, while the “Cushicle would be the source of (a) movement, (b) a larger envelope than the suit can provide, (c) power.” (A Guide to Archigram, Archigram Archives, pp 207). Each suit has a plug that would function analogously to a key to your front door. You would be able to use it to plug into any envelope to move into another one or combine several of them to form one larger envelope. Many different versions of the Cushicle envelope and the Suitaloon would be available for different types of lifestyles, from super sports to family style. THE SUITALOON 04WEEK
Testing out a prototype of the Suitaloon. Image: Dance with Archigram 19 CAYLEE SACKS19CAYLEE SACKS
20 GRADUATE THESIS 2022
Jakpak Jacket transforms into personal tent and sleeping bag by CP Company 21 CAYLEE SACKS 05WEEK
22 GRADUATE THESIS 2022
The presentation of melting clothes was part of the Hussein Chalayan Spring Summer 2016
DISSOLVING DRESS
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24 GRADUATE THESIS 2022
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HUSSEIN CHALAYAN In his SS99 Collection Chalayan reinterprets chairs as wearable designs as his work explores the idea of a nomadic existence.
Paulina Wallenberg Olsson’s bulletproof ballgown makes a statement about elegance, danger, protection and vulnerability.
26 GRADUATE THESIS 2022
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UPCYCLED STREETWEAR
06WEEK NOMAD
THE FASHION OF ARCHITECTURE
An excerpt by Bradley Quinn
Throughout the World, cities are cities are being reshaped and reinvented to reflect changes in society. City planners and architects are engineering initiatives to make the relationship between the urban landscape and the city dweller as frictionless as possible. Initiatives to faciliate greater egress, green spaces, designate comfort zones are intended to create environments whose comforts lure wealthy residents and tourists. And yet, cities are also arenas for conflict; they stage confrontations between fluidity and stability, hinder movement and foster immobility. Pollution, homelessness, violent crime, overcrowding and transportation delays are the realities of these unlikely utopias. Recognizing that architecture alone cannot create an urban idyll, fashion is now addressing some of these shortcomings by finding solutions for a new type of city dweller: the urban nomad. Nomadism, through necessity, has become the contemporary condition. As people travel through cities, spend long hours working or commuting, urban dwellers are more likely to occupy several temporary habitats throughout the day for longer periods of time. The modern person’s habitation is the body, assisted by technical devies and made comfortable through choice of wardrobe. As a new aethetically driven dynamic of multi-functionality equips urbanites for their itinerant existence, fashion designers and architects are questionsing the future role of ‘brick and mortar’ structures, reviving the vision for mobile urbanization that Archigram pioneered decades ago. Fashion designers who work according to architectural principles are creating clothing they conceive as ‘dynamic structures’ between the built environment and immediate needs of the wearer. Interpreting fashion as moving forms that enclose and protect the urban nomad.
PROTECT THE URBAN
28 GRADUATE THESIS 2022
Reflecting its title, Final Home, this garment with over 40 pockets represents the designer’s concept that clothing can ultimately become a home. Fill the pockets with newspaper to stay warm when outdoors, or insert cushions into the pockets to create a jacket that is ideal for watching an outdoor sport. This coat is useful in a range of different situations in everyday life, while it is so flexible that its use can be extended to survival scenarios. This garment representing clothing as a home is arguably a symbol of a society dominated by the nuclear family and in which the emphasis is on the individual life. This garment is also a product of recycling, and therefore the concept behind the product also incorporates social issues such as ecology.
THE FINAL-HOME JACKET
Title: Coat “Final Home” Creator: Kosuke Tsumura Fashion House: FINAL HOME Label: FINAL HOME Date Created: 1994 ©The KyotoCostume Institute, photo by Takashi Hatakeyam Rights: Collection of The Kyoto Costume Institute Medium: Nylon coat
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“Young Architects can change the world by not building buildings”–Virgil Abloh
OFF-WHITE FALL 2019
Spacesuits from oldest top left down to more recent versions bottom right 31 CAYLEE SACKS SPACESUIT EVOLUTION 07WEEK GRADUATE THESIS 2022
SoftSPACESUITSsuits|Softsuitstypicallyaremademostly of fabrics. All soft suits have some hard parts; some even have hard joint bearings. Intra-vehicular activity and early EVA suits were soft suits. Hard-shell suits | Hard-shell suits are usually made of metal or composite materials and do not use fabric for joints. Hard suits joints use ball bearings and wedgering segments similar to an adjustable elbow of a stove pipe to allow a wide range of movement with the arms and legs. The joints maintain a constant volume of air internally and do not have any counter-force. Therefore, the astronaut does not need to exert to hold the suit in any position. Hard suits can also operate at higher pressures which would eliminate the need for an astronaut to pre-breathe oxygen to use a 34 kPa (4.9 psi) space suit before an EVA from a 101 kPa (14.6 psi) spacecraft cabin. The joints may get into a restricted or locked position requiring the astronaut to manipulate or program the joint. The NASA Ames Research Center experimental AX-5 hard-shell space suit had a flexibility rating of 95%. The wearer could move into 95% of the positions they could without the suit on. Hybrid suits | Hybrid suits have hard-shell parts and fabric parts. NASA’s Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) uses a fiberglass Hard Upper Torso (HUT) and fabric limbs. ILC Dover’s I-Suit replaces the HUT with a fabric soft upper torso to save weight, restricting the use of hard components to the joint bearings, helmet, waist seal, and rear entry hatch. Virtually all workable space suit designs incorporate hard components, particularly at interfaces such as the waist seal, bearings, and in the case of rear-entry suits, the back hatch, where all-soft alternatives are not viable.
GRADUATETYPOLOGYTHESIS 2022
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Skintight suits | Further information: Mechanical counterpressure suit. Skintight suits, also known as mechanical counterpressure suits or space activity suits, are a proposed design which would use a heavy elastic body stocking to compress the body. The head is in a pressurized helmet, but the rest of the body is pressurized only by the elastic effect of the suit. This mitigates the constant volume problem,[citation needed] reduces the possibility of a space suit depressurization and gives a very lightweight suit. When not worn, the elastic garments may appear to be that of clothing for a small child. These suits may be very difficult to put on and face problems with providing a uniform pressure. Most proposals use the body’s natural perspiration to keep cool. Sweat evaporates readily in vacuum and may desublime or deposit on objects nearby: optics, sensors, the astronaut’s visor, and other surfaces. The icy film and sweat residue may contaminate sensitive surfaces and affect optical performance.
Jan.
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NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken don SpaceX spacesuits in the Astronaut Crew Quarters at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on 17, 2020, during a dress rehearsal.
Bio-Suit is a space activity suit under development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which as of 2006 consisted of several lower leg prototypes. Bio-suit is custom fit to each wearer, using laser body scanning. It’s a tight fit – but if you’re sauntering around on Mars that’s a fashion statement. Space designers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are stitching together plans for shrink-wrapping spacesuits. So much so that spacesuits of the future may resemble a streamlined second skin.
She and her colleagues are one step closer to engineering an active, “second-skin” spacesuit: active compression garments that incorporate small, spring-like coils that contract in response to heat. The coils are made from a shape-memory alloy – a type of material that “remembers” an engineered shape and, when bent or deformed, can spring back to this shape when heated.
The MIT BioSuit is a skintight spacesuit that offers improved mobility and reduced mass compared to modern gas-pressurized spacesuits. The skintight, pressurized suit would not only support the astronaut, but would give the space traveler much more freedom to move during planetary exploration. To take the suit off, the wearer would only have to apply modest force, returning the suit to its looser form.
Master space suit designer at MIT is Dava Newman, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems researchers.
MOST ADVANCED
GRADUATEBIO-SUIT THESIS 2022
The MIT BioSuit is a skintight spacesuit that offers improved mobility and reduced mass. Close-up view of a 3D printed shape memory alloy (SMA) cartridge that packs 24 SMA actuators into a 1-inch-wide structure designed specifically for active compression garments. 34
The idea is that an astronaut may don a lightweight, stretchy garment, lined with tiny, muscle-like coils. That person would then plug in to a spacecraft’s power supply, triggering the coils to contract and essentially shrinkwrap the garment around the person’s body. The coil design was conceived by Bradley Holschuh, a postdoc in Newman’s MIT lab. “Ultimately, the big advantage is mobility, and a very lightweight suit for planetary exploration,” said Newman in a MIT press statement. According to Newman , while the suit team is concentrating mostly on applications in space, the suit design and active materials may be used for other purposes, such as in athletic wear or military uniforms. SPACESUIT
Photo: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT Mobility for planetary exploration.
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Spacesuit engineer Dava Newman dons the Biosuit spacesuit design on Henry Moore’s sculpture “Reclining Figure” on the MIT campus.
Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, is a transformative approach to industrial production that enables the creation of lighter, stronger parts and systems.
36 GRADUATE THESIS EMERGING2022 TECHNOLOGY 08WEEK ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING
It is yet, another technological advancement made possible by the transition from analog to digital processes. In recent decades, communications, imaging, architecture and engineering have all undergone their own digital revolutions. Now, AM can bring digital flexibility and efficiency to manufacturing operations. Within spacesuit development 3D printing or AM can be used to reduce the mass of hard-shell space suits while retaining the high mobility they provide. This fabrication method also allows for the potential for in-situ fabrication and repair of suits, a capability which is not currently available, but will likely be necessary for Martian exploration. The University of Maryland began development of a prototype 3D printed hard suit in 2016, based on the kinematics of the AX-5. The prototype arm segment is designed to be evaluated in the Space Systems Laboratory glovebox to compare mobility to traditional soft suits. Initial research has focused on the feasibility of printing rigid suit elements, bearing races, ball bearings, seals, and sealing surfaces.
37 A 3D printed faux fabric swatch test with recycled PLA CAYLEE SACKS
09WEEK 38 GRADUATE THESIS RECYCLED2022 PLASTICS & 3D PRINTING
Recycled filaments are commercially available, and purchasing them means you’ll be reducing your environmental footprint while increasing sustainability. Filamentive and Tridea are examples of sellers who stock recycled filaments. 3DBrooklyn has a filament made from potato chip bags while 3Dom Filaments has a beer filament made from the byproducts of the beer-making process.
39 DIY recycling machines from Precious Plastic. Source: springwise.com CAYLEE SACKS
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3D printed chainmail with recycled PLA infused with wood fibers 42 GRADUATE THESIS 2022
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Testing TPU filament prints that are 100% recycled 44 GRADUATE THESIS 2022
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SOLAR FIBRE TECHNOLOGY
Solar energy is used to heat the wearer’s side. The filament is made of mesh coated with a solar technology similar to that used for solar water heaters. Certain filaments like right can additionally glow in the dark. Technology patent pending with ThermalTech USA.
INTELLIGENT FASHION
In recent years, we’ve seen the birth of Google Glass, and Durex’s controversial Fundawear (vibrating underwear), along with a slew of other garments that look as though they’ve been pillaged from the costume department of Forbidden Planet. Google Glass’ recent demise only serves to highlight the tech sector’s need to embrace form and function on equal Yetplane.2014 unveiled another dimension to wearable technology’s in-vogue moment where it began an unlikely but fecund affair with environmentalism. Wearable tech ceased to be merely technology for technology’s sake, and became grounded in finding real world solutions for real world Energyproblems.harvesting became a recurring theme in the discourse of new sustainability-centred wearable tech. Meg Grant, one of the pioneers behind Solar Fibre, a flexible fibre capable of converting sunlight into energy, is such an ardent believer in the ‘game-changing’ power of this nascent technology, that she and her team reject stringent copyright in favour of leaving it open source. Grant implores the adoption of Solar Fibre in such a matter-of-fact way that suggests it would be almost shameful not to, “textiles already cover so many surfaces, why not give them a super power that can take advantage of this?”
GRADUATE THESIS 2022 10WEEK
From a purely aesthetic point of view, what makes Solar Fibre so remarkable is its subtlety.
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ARTIFICIAL LIGHT-ENERGY
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ELECTRONIC & SMART TEXTILES
ELECTRONIC SKIN Integrates stretchable circuit and sensor technologies with traditional textiles to remote monitor the user’s motion, respiration and body temperature for virtual reality gaming, healthcare and fitness apparel markets. [Xenoma, Japan].
Textiles | The textile has a smart textile property in its electronic textile is known as smart electronic textile. Smart electronic textiles usually contain conductive yarns which are spun or twisted to enable electrical conductivity. Consequently, Smart electronic textiles allow computation to occur on the human body.
48 GRADUATE THESIS 2022
Electronic textiles or e-textiles, often confounded with smart textiles, are fabrics that enable digital components such as a battery and a light, including small computers, and electronics to be embedded in them. “Smart textiles” are fabrics that have been developed with new SmarttechnologiesElectronic
POWERED BY SUN & WIND
Nanostructured polyethylene that is opaque to visible light, yet transparent to mid-IR: transmitting radiation from the body, letting moisture and air pass through, while keeping the wearer’s privacy. [Yi Cui, Stanford] smart electronic textiles that currently
COOLING CLOTHES
49 CAYLEE SACKS Various examples of
a bracelet is made from fabric woven with special energyharvesting strands. Triboelectricity generated from wind & motion plus Photoanodes that process sunlight into energy. [Zhong-Lin Wang, Georgia Tech]
exist
Bella Hadid gets 3-D scanned to build an avatar for Mugler’s spring 2021 collection video.
Photo: Torso / Courtesy of Mugler
50 GRADUATE THESIS 2022 RETHINKING THE
Ermenegildo Zegna announced that its “phygital” show would take place July 17 at Milan Fashion Week Men’s. For the menswear label, phygital meant prerecorded films screened alongside a physical runway at an outdoor location in Trivero, a small village outside Milan. Since then the word has come to define a fashion show experience that’s part IRL, part URL, from physical shows paired with virtual effects to at-home mailers coupled with social media content. Sam Lobban, the senior vice president of designer and new concepts at Nordstrom, rejects the divide between physical and digital too. “I don’t think anyone lives in one world or the other,” he says. “The most engaging experiences of the past six to nine months have been those that have really shown up for the customer with a real understanding of their lives, rather than taking a singular approach. How Jonathan Anderson handled both JW Anderson and Loewe, delivering physical assets that connected people to what was going on digitally, was super clever, because he was really reaching into people’s homes as well as connecting them on the internet.”
11WEEK CAYLEE SACKS PHYGITAL IS HERE TO STAY & EVOLVING
51 THE FASHION SHOW & MARKETING
In 2021 there were a handful of “normal” fashion shows despite the pandemic. People traveled the world to sit on benches, trading notes, gossip, and camera-phone snaps of designer runways. But many others embraced the moment and have been applauded for it.
For example, Loewe’s “Show in a Box”, screened films made by directors like Nick Knight for Maison Margiela and Gus Van Sant for Gucci, and even puppets worked a runway show at Moschino. A virtual Bella Hadid came to life at Mugler and video games were played at Balenciaga and Collina Strada. Exactly what constitutes a fashion show these days and who gets invited will continue evolving.
Many others have followed suit, finding ways to make a physical show feel special, while offering exclusive online content or delivering products to editors’ homes while offering behind-the-scenes breakdowns online. Among the most-buzzed-about integrations were Louis Vuitton’s greenscreen show that projected Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire to viewers at home and Balmain’s LED screen front row of physical people applauding Olivier Rousteing’s spring 2021 collection virtually. The potential for experimentation here feels endless, and brands would be wise to harmonize their real and virtual approaches even in a post-vaccine world.
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2021
COLLINA STRADA SS
Behind the scenes of Collina Strada’s spring 2021 video shoot.
Photo: Hunter Abrams
GRADUATE THESIS 2022
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LOUIS VUITTON SS 2021 Models walk the finale of the Louis Vuitton spring 2021 show, which used green-screen technology to project Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire for viewers at home.
Photo: Women’s Spring-Summer 2021 Fashion Show © Louis Vuitton
54 GRADUATE THESIS 2022 12WEEK
“Feeling unsafe” is present in the public and political sector as a phenomenon that affects everyone the same way, regardless of social and gender differences. The feeling of fear involves at least two dimensions: one, the way people refer to lack of safety in public space, and two, fear for oneself. The consequences of feeling unsafe can have negative effects on an individual’s personal life, and on the health of the individual. Both dimensions have been challenged and weakened through events in the public consciousness; and today the ability to physically occupy public space is more threatened and threatening than ever. The public world only works if people can appear there, and anxiety, discomfort or fear can destroy that or at least diminish it as a meaningful arena for common life and discourse.
To combine everyday clothing, fashion and armor is a way of designing the chance for people to be in public space again without (as much) fear. This project is not a solution to gun violence in America, but a strategy to counteract the way violence erodes public life. I see the opportunity to bring culture, discourse, style, and design of public life back into action precisely in the places where gun violence has forced them to recede. My intention is to alter the relationship between the physical body and public space, thereby altering the perception of fear in public spaces. This thesis aims to help reduce a sense of danger and helplessness through techno-fashion with an emerging type of protective, performance-wear that allows people to feel confidently present in public space again. The project will be present a proof of concept clothing line though the medium of film. I will write, direct, produce and design for the film following a day in the life of a college student who is forced to deal with a violent encounter.
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MyPROPOSALthesisdeploystechno-fashioninclothing
to manipulate the wearer’s sense of safety to counter the contemporary fear-driven diminution of participation in public space. By incorporating armor into everyday fashion, I recognize the militarization and precarity of physical bodily presence in public life; and want to strengthen the public resolve to still take presence in public life despite psychological and real threats.
56 GRADUATE THESIS 2022
57 CAYLEE SACKS
58 GRADUATE THESIS 2022
FOLLOW @NOTJUSTANARCHITECT_ @4UR.PROTECTION GRADUATE THESIS 2022 GRADUATE THESIS 2022