Dance in the Rain

Its almost the end of the semester. The passed two weeks was a hectic for me since all the projects are due in the coming 2 weeks. I haven’t been updating about my final project. So here it is. For my final project, I have a chance to work with Ellie and here is our concept.

Living in Vancouver forced me to live with the rain almost 300 days out of the 365 days in a year. I never liked the rain ever since I was born because of the wetness and puddles on the streets. Studies say that approximately two percent of the population in Canada resulted in SAD (Seasonal Affection Disorder) who suffers from depression during the cold rainy season. In result, many people would rather stay indoor than enjoy the rain in the nature. It inspired me to base my final project in this direction— a concept raincoat. Working together with Ellie, we hope to encourage more activities in the rain and promote the idea that raining can be amusing and beneficial to the environment. Our vision for our raincoat design is that it embraces functionality, aesthetics and playfulness. Our concept is to incorporate hydro-chromic pattern on the raincoat, and embed the weather forecast technology into the raincoat to signifies the user to wear the raincoat.

Here are some existing designs that inspired me:

Luminescent Raincoat juxtaposes electricity and water in a raincoat that luminesces in response to droplets of rain. Embroidered water sensors act as inputs to a system with sealed electroluminescent panels that illuminate based on patterns of rain. The raincoat/cape and hood recall the retro-futuristic designs of Pierre Cardin and Andre Courreges in the sixties while incorporating computational behavior beyond an aesthetic notion of what technology looks like.

Hydrochromatic Umbrella by SquidLondon

Similar to the thermochromic ink I’ve previously used, this hydrochromatic ink responds to water. I’ve contacted this company and they agreed to send me a sample of their hydrochromatic ink. Hopefully they will be here as soon as possible so we have a better idea of how we can apply to the raincoat.

Ambient Umbrella — a weather forecast umbrella

video: lilypad experiment

I finally converted the clip to avi. format so I can upload onto youtube, but the quality is not too good…

Here are some pictures from the previous Lilypad experiment. Lilypad itself looks really pretty, just like a flower. It inspired us to make flower shape buttons. So when the button is pressed, the circuit is connected and the stigma of the flower will light up. The lighted up LED is not too obvious but you can tell from the light on the  lilypad board when a circuit is opened.

   

Flower shaped button made of aluminum foil

interactive wearable in commercial

So what happens to all these wonderful conceptual interactive fashion pieces once they disappear off the radar of the blogosphere? Some apparently get used in commercials.

I love this quirky South Koren commercial developed around Ann de Gersem’s Life Dress (made in 2006).

For those of you unfamiliar with the Life Dress, it was designed:
“to give its wearer the possibility to instantly create a personal space, in which she/he can seclude her/himself from the chaotic surroundings.”

 

Many of the new wearable technologies are based on really interesting concepts.  They are very entertaining and can be very inspiring, but who would actually wear them in real life?

During Sabine Seymour’s presentation, there are a few points that stood out to me:  the functionality of the garment and other people’s perception towards the garment.  As I am contemplating on my final project, it is really important to keep these in mind. I still want to stick with the idea of a purse with glow up pockets, which won’t look overly techie because only the user can see the glow up icons inside the purse. I really like Annabelle’s idea of using icons instead of my original concept of using text. It is much more universal for everyone to use.

Some inspiration for my final project..

As I was researching about interactive wearables the other day, I came across this DIY light up purse. Probably a lot of girls have had this problem of searching for a small thing inside your purse in the dark.  This light up purse has a simple contact sensor so when the purse is open, the LED lights up.  It inspires me about my final project. What if the purse has different pockets for different objects (cellphone, keys,wallet, etc.) and there will be LED text on each pocket. When the purse is opened, all of the LED texts light up and indicates where all the things are?

DIY: Make your own conductive thread

After the demo of connecting the Lilypad to a simple switch, I researched a bit on my own and I found this post that teaches how to DIY conductive thread.

Buckypaper

It’s been a while since i last updated because I was on a trip to New York during the reading break. During the trip I had a chance to visit the MoMA (Museum of Modern Arts) which I really enjoyed. I’ll post up some pictures once I’ve uploaded them to my computer.

I’m still very lost in coming up with an idea for my final project but when i was researching , I came across an article that i would like to share. Reminiscing the old days when my brother and I used to make paper airplanes and boats, this interesting article talks about future planes, vehicles and TV being made of a super paper, Buckypaper, that is 500 times stronger than steel.

Thermochromic T-shirt: ME

What we wear often shows who we are or how we want to be interpreted. T-shirts are often used as propaganda back then to communicate strong messages. The concept behind this thermochromic t-shirt is to challenge the audiences to avoid viewing “me” (or the person wearing it) with their eyes and judge me from what they see, but try to understand me in another way. I use the language for the visually impaired people– brailles as a metaphor.

It was my first time silk screening. The first try didn’t work out too well. The ink wasn’t evenly spread.

Before the t-shirt is put on / After heat is applied, “ME” faded away and brailles reveal

For the past week, I’ve been struggling really hard to come up with a concept for my thermochromatic shirt. I was always thinking that the ink will appear at 37 degrees. After realizing that it is actually disappearing at 37 degrees, i have to come up with a new concept.  I have a hard to relating the body temperature with a disappearing message but I’m leaning towards the concept of clothing being an identity of oneself.  I stumbled upon a quote the other day: “Everytime you spend money you are casting a vote for the kind of world you want” (Anna Lappe). What we put on ourselves shows who we are — a side of us that we want to show to the public? I want to play with the idea of a hidden message/print on the garment but I don’t exactly know what yet =/

 

I couldn’t believe I found this! My idea of incorporating magnets into jeweleries is already out there. Using magnets to attach two hands is a neat idea but if it was in a way in which the two hands could hold, it would be much better. With this idea, it would be interesting to see if the hand is snap to a stranger’s hand