TailorAid Research - Fashionable Technology

TailorAid in the shop.

TailorAid at home

TaiorAid for designers

Performance "Piece" - Fashionable Technology

The idea of fantastical human mutation has led me to think about a garment that could make itself. The only thing missing is intent. The human body can contribute that. There are many craft-based examples of the body literally making the textile piece.

Back strap weaving in Guatemala

Finger knitting

Hand crochet

Humans are defined by our incredible, contextually adaptable armature (finger, arms, legs). Even if we have incomplete armature we can adapt and perhaps improve upon what we had before. Taking the human body as Swiss army knife metaphor a step further, I believe we could make a method for the natural kinesthetic motions of the body to create a textile as natural motions occur. Below is a speculative visualization of what such an armature could be.

I have no clue how to literally go about making this happen though…nano-tech? 3D printing?

As a speculative exercise I created this extension armature to simulate extendable skins.

Super Hero - Fashionable Technology

Rogue of the X-Men. Absorbs all power, strength and memories of anyone she touches.

I was a huge X-Men fan when I was a kid, probably because they had the coolest X-women and the. 90s cartoon on repeat. Two of my favorites were Rogue and, even though she was hugely annoying, Jubilee. Both channeled power in different forms.

I didn't realize it as a child fanlady but most of the female characters in X-Men channeled natural and super natural phenomena. None that I know of were given pure brute strength except for Rogue and her only because she absorbed power uncontrollably. This led me to think of the most physically powerful and superhero-esque person I know of, who is real: Aimee Mullins.

Two of my favorite artists, Matthew Barney and Alexander McQueen, have been inspired by and worked with Aimee.

Aimee wearing Greek god-like prosthetics in a still from Matthew Barney’s epic multimedia piece The Cremaster Cycle.

Mutant Designing

Some initial sketches I made in class, mostly with very silly more than serious results. The bottom right idea is my favorite. Madame Flea has powerful lower body mutation that allows her to jump up to 80x her own height.

Chicken Girl has a crazy head waddle that also intercepts any radio frequency and serves as a broadcaster.

Sweater Woman channels electricity and radiation and can control the surface to transform like an animated knitted play-doh.

sketches for Chicken Girl, Sweater Woman, and Madame Flea.