New materials and designs

GPS dress

Hi-tech glow-in-the-dark outfit made from the world’s lightest fabric responds to people’s gaze

Springing To Life

Pauline van Dongen

Van Dongen’s second 3D-printing project, Ruff, was made in collaboration with architect Behnaz Farahi. They wanted to use 3D-printing technologies to create a dynamic, flexible shape that moved around the body. However, they learned the materials often used for 3D printing are rigid and easily broken. To counteract this, van Dongen and Farahi experimented by printing various spring-like plastic shapes. These structures proved to be much more durable and pliable.

Science In Motion

To activate the 3D-printed springs’ movements, van Dongen fitted them with wires made of nitinol--aka nickel titanium. Nitinol exhibits the unique property of shape memory. At one temperature, the metal deforms, but when heated back to its “transformation temperature,” nitinol goes back to its original, undeformed shape. By fitting the nitinol spring with small electric cables, van Dongen was able to adjust its temperature, prompting the wire to expand and contract. The effect was a “breathing like, organic entity” that seemed to crawl over the wearer’s body.

Cheryl Pope - Up Against, 2010/2013

Ying Gao, Wearable Technologies

Zixi Qu

Lilian Hipolyte Mushi

The pleated sleeves of another garment are embedded with Nitinol wire, a shape-memory alloy that becomes rigid when heated. This expands the arms to twice the size and then collapses them back when cool, again highlighting changes in body temperature.

Studio Roosegaarde and Anouk Wipprecht, the clothing is made from leather and electrically-sensitive foils that become opaque or transparent according to alterations in voltage.

Ying Gao: Art, Fashion and Technology presents a dozen pieces that include three series of interactive garments which move and change in response to noise, sound, motion or light.

Product design graduate Amila Hrustić of Bosnia and Herzegovina has created a collection of dresses embellished with clustered geometric shapes.

Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake has designed a range of clothing that expand from two-dimensional geometric shapes into structured shirts, skirts, pants and dresses.

London architect Daniel Widrig has collaborated with fashion designer Iris van Herpen and digital manufacturers .MGX by Materialise to create a collection of digitally printed clothing.

experimental jewellery by Swiss luxury design firm Atelier XJC that references feathers, scales and large delicate ruffs.

Langdi Lin Blooming Body Collection, When Textiles Transform With Body Movement

Origami fashion:

http://uttu-textilesblog.com/2014/02/21/origami-fashion/

Tine de Ruysser – Wearable Metal Origami

Margarida Machado, a young fashion designer based in Lisbon, created a design concept in her Master’s project which she called Transformable Clothes. Transformable Clothes relies on a modular structure that allows the consumer to turn the garments into different forms, creating multiple solutions for one single dress (see picture below). Imagine this dress allows four design variations. Instead of investing large amounts of raw material to produce four different dresses, we could focus our efforts on one single dress that offers four different solutions; that endures four times more, with four times more quality, and that can still be mass-produced. How about that? And this is not even a new idea. There are some remarkable designers and projects that have been diffusing this idea for years through mass customization and DIY concepts. Transformable Clothes is a tool to build from scratch. It gives the consumer the power to create and manage his or her individuality and to convey different messages to others. Most of all, it lasts in a wardrobe because it outlasts short-term trends and style oscillations.

During the tests we tried different materials for the modules (such as felt, different types of artificial leather and Neoprene) different sizes and shapes, ways to connect the modules (through the module itself or with elements such as eyelets, metal screws, and plastic screws)and different schemes of connections.

The best solution we got used two layers of modules, made from artificial leather, that are stitched to each other in the sides, with a corset bone going on the middle. This way, the construction has a more structured behavior. The connections are made from plastic screws because they are lighter than metallic ones (the weight of metal screws forced the structure to expand).

EYEs - Omnipresent Symbol

The eye is considered the gateway to our inner world. A “third eye” is thought to sit in between the two eyes. In India a bindi traditionally marks this spot, the sixth chakra.

Another historical eye motif can be spotted in Queen Elizabeth I of England’s famous Rainbow Portrait. In this official royal portrait painted in the late 16th century, the monarch wears a gown embroidered with eyes and ears, signifying an omnipotent queen who sees all and hears all. On another level, the eye also sets Her Majesty apart from what came before, demarcating her intention to break with the established order: the overriding reference here is to the queen’s motto “video et taceo” (“I see, and say nothing”). Elizabeth I was more moderate than her predecessors and warlord neighbors, preferring to lend her attention to the theater renaissance and feats of naval prowess rather than religious repressions and conquests.

Illuminati and freemasons eye - The Eye of Providence (or the all-seeing eye of God) is a symbol showing an eye often surrounded by rays of light or a gloryand usually enclosed by a triangle. It is sometimes interpreted as representing the eye of God watching over humankind.

Issey Miyake Bag

Issey uses a formation of triangles called a square type. I like it, but I think it looks too geometrical and even. In my project I want to go for the triangle formation called trapizium, in my opinion it creates a more flexible material which looks more "pretty", thus esthetically more appealing.

3D pannels

This is something I was not aware of before the Unit 7 project. My friends - an architect and interior designer - after looking at my material samples, said that it looks very much like the 3d panels which are used in interior design. 

Interestingly, they do have the same look, however, they are static and do not move, therefore, they have a different concept to my project.

Origami

This is the idea which came out of my material experimentation. When I broke up my illustration into separate fragments, glued them on a piece of paper and folded this paper along the "fault lines". The creases I got on the back of this piece of paper have reminded me of origami unfolds. This is a concept which I am planning to explore more in my next personal project.

Russian female headdresses

In the olden days Russia, hair was the symbol of strength and vitality. This is why it was so important to keep it safe and therefore cover. To have hair down meant to embarrass yourself and let your energy be stolen. This is why witches are always represented with messy undone hair. Additionally, females are only allowed to entre the Orthodox Church with covered head.

Hair braiding and wearing a headdress was an old tradition in Russia, the purpose of which was to attract attention of future husbands. Really, there was only one hairstyle in the olden days Russia – the low braid. The headdress was warn on top of the head and left the crown free, this was not only for the purposes of decoration, but also it served as an amulet against all evil and later on as a marital status of the female. In fact there is even a special term for the change of the un-married headdress for married, called “okruchivanie”.

The oldest and primary headdress was a metallic ring that went around the widest part of the head. Temporal rings and forehead metal ornaments were then clipped onto it.

I LOVE how much symbolism is carried in these beautiful accessories. I like, how there is a meaning behind it, apart from aesthetics. 

This is the concept I wold love to have in all my works - meaning and aesthetics together.

Originals

Influences on current fashion

Konstantin Gayday 

Hedy Lamarr being a star and wearing them

Atelier Haute Mode

Suki Waterhouse

Roll It

Bali dance

Balinese dances are a very ancient dance tradition that is a part of the religious and artistic expression among the Balinese people, native to Bali island, Indonesia. Balinese dance is dynamic, angular and intensely expressive. The Balinese dancers express the story of dance-drama through the whole bodily gestures; fingers, hands and body gestures to head and eyes movements.
There is a great richness of dance forms and styles in Bali; and particularly notable are those ritualistic dance dramas which involve Rangda, the witch and the great beast Barong. Most of dances in Bali are connected to Hindu rituals, such as the Sanghyang Dedari sacred dance than invoked hyang spirits that believed to possess the dancers in trance state during the performance. Other Balinese dances are not linked to religious rituals and created for certain purposes, such as Pendetwelcoming dance and Joged dance that is social dance for entertainment purpose.