A journal on this project can be found here.

As part of the Fashion & Gardens programme of the Garden Museum London, we, the fashion and environment course student at LCF have the opportunity to create garments practicing sustainable approaches. Kassim Textile Mills kindly supported us generously with their sustainable denim fabrics.

My personal approach is an on-going project, exercising the practice of speculative design. The aim of the project is to use design as a media to catalyze social discussion and debate over what life could be in the near future, to explore how to create clothes that make people think. The modern economies rely heavily on the development of science and technology. While there is generally an overwhelming hail of all the benefits brought by them, the other doubtful impact is less discussed. Artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, life science, nanotechnology are among the major technologies defining human future. It is likely that in the near future of 20-30 years, human body will be inevitably transformed. According to Moraver, at this point, Humankind can either choose to acquire robots’ mechanisms to become themselves robotics, or disappear into complete insignificance. (Moravec, 1998, 1999)
While clothes, whose role in modern economy is normally to encourage consumption. This collection hope to make people think about their possible form and identity in the manipulation of technologies. The purpose is not to indicate what is right and what is wrong, but only to encourage reflection, to make fashion participate in social debate. My working process is:
1. Choose the data that I want to use. (I hereby chose the exponential growth of artificial intelligence in 35 years)
2. Visualize the data in 2D graphics
3. Cut the fabric in the shape of visualize data
4. Drape the fabric on body and stand to find wearable and interesting 3D forms
5. Design the finishing and details e.g. pocket
6. The finished piece and exhibiton April 16, Garden Museum London

The textures of the denim fabrics from Kassim Textile gave me a great space for imaginations. The reddish color of the inside of the fabric` serves well of my purpose of representing human brain power. The contrast and subtlety of the colors of warp and weft thread gives the inspiration to develop the zip and fringe finishing which is a perfect solution to cover all the seams and zips in a neat and interesting style (fig. 5, 6).

These two pieces are a big step during my research on speculative design and I will carry it further to form my master project which explores values and identity by visualizing data in 2D and 3D forms, realized in knitwear.