Crafting wearables

An exciting new field in the creative industry is the integration of fashion and technology, for example by embedding electronics, microprocessors, solar panels, LEDs, or interactive interfaces into the fabric, textile, or clothing. Dutch designers like Pauline van Dongen, Iris van Herpen, Bart Hess, Lucy McRae, Marina Toeters and Anouk Wipprecht form the vanguard in the international field of fashionable technology. However, while the future of fashionable technology, or ‘wearables’, has been announced many times, the praxis lags behind. Wearables rarely leave the lab or catwalk, because they are not tested through the entire production chain; the aesthetics of the design is not integrated in the technology; or they remain a gadget without taking into account the wearer’s body, identity or performance.

The interdisciplinary research project ‘Crafting Wearables’ aims at designing wearables that are robust, fashionable as well as commercially viable within the production chain. In order to achieve this aim, the team and participating partners bring together the different fields of fashion, technology, industry, and academic scholarship. Through interrelated research projects the interdisciplinary programme will bridge the gap between theory and practice, experiment and industry, and design and production. As a result, the project will not only craft wearables but also analyse how fashionable technology relates to identity, comprehend its social impact, bring technology closer to fashion design, and make it a competitive branch of the creative industry in The Netherlands.

This research project entails a cooperation between:

• Radboud University Nijmegen: prof.dr. Anneke Smelik (project leader)
• Technical University Eindhoven: dr. Oscar Tómicó Placencia
• ArtEZ Fashion Academy Arnhem: professor José Teunissen

And the following private and public partners:

• Philips Research, TextielLab – TextielMuseum, MODINT, Freedom of Creation, Solar Fiber, Inntex, Xsens

Researchers:

• Ph.D. with RU: Lianne Toussaint MA
• Ph.D./designer with TU/e: Pauline van Dongen
• Four junior researchers for one-year projects with TU/e and ArtEZ

The research is financed by NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research), with a contribution in kind from the private partners. The project starts in September 2013 and finishes in June 2018.

For more information: a.smelik@let.ru.nl