Dates: 16/01/23 – 20/01/23
Teammates: Keyi Cao, Qibin Cheng, Rebecca Hodge, Carlotta Montanari
Working with Clare Farrell of Extinction Rebellion, our task for our first one-week brief was to design a garment to help survive social breakdown. Our finished product was a piece of fabric, worn like a wing attached to one shoulder, that could attach to another person’s shoulder to form a kind of temporary private enclosure; attached to the outside were official documents such as visas and identity cards, while the inside was covered in personal memorabilia, to try and transport some sense of home in an environment where home had been taken away.
Our original idea involved a modular garment, where people in forced cohabitation scenarios could swap parts of their clothing for functional purposes, such as attaching long sleeves in cold weather, creating a sense of social transaction among strangers. However, while we liked this idea in terms of its functionality, we were underwhelmed by its appearance and the emotional reaction we had to it; considering the aims of speculative design, we wanted to create something that relied more on statement and provocation than functional usage.
Our next idea built upon this modularity by having two wings connect to the back of a garment that could extend out to form two walls of an enclosure. In tutorials, we received very positive feedback as to the idea of butterfly wings as a metaphor for fragility and transience. This is where pressures of the one-week brief began to take an adverse effect – with time, we could have realised this idea through higher-fidelity craft, and we should have realised that this idea would have highly depended on the visual quality of the final product.
Using an old bed sheet from a charity shop, we decided to change the idea to one wing per person in order to encourage social exchange, as one wing would be nearly useless alone. This is where we also decided to add memorabilia in order to remind us of a bedroom wall, creating an intimate and highly personal space between the participants. We also intensified the butterfly metaphor by stitching silver thread along the sheet in the pattern of insect wings.
In our presentation, we received the following feedback:
- We were somewhat lacking in craft in the finished product
- Our design was well expressed in Q&A, but less obvious from the garment itself
- We presented the memorabilia very simply
On reflection, I’m very proud of what we accomplished in 3 and a half days of work. With more time, this project would have allowed us to really focus on the craft and design – perhaps we could have gone for a bolder idea that would have been more visually impressive in a shorter period of time. It also demonstrates the importance of non-verbal communication in design; we could take a cue from other groups who successfully incorporated performance and sound design into their presentations to communicate their ideas more evocatively.
Harry Solomons 