Survival of the Outfit
BRIEF: Design and make a garment for surviving social breakdown
Team Member: Ruoxi Song, Tanya Singh, Mengdie Lu, Jakob Prufer, Changlin Hou
TimeFrame: 16 JAN.-20 JAN.
Team Member: Ruoxi Song, Tanya Singh, Mengdie Lu, Jakob Prufer, Changlin Hou
TimeFrame: 16 JAN.-20 JAN.
To start this brief with most of us have no experience of making clothes, we had a pattern cutting workshop with Clare.
Brainstorm:
The workshop is helpful and we all get some ideas of how to make a garment. With this experience, we started to brainstorm ideas since we only have one week to finish the garment.
We started to think deeper on the brief, and read the reference about Lucy Orta and her refuge wear projects.
We were keen to the topic of water when we look into the brief and think about the issue of climate change. Water crisis is around the world, especially the water scarcity in Africa. The lack of water there give a lot of pressure to women because they are the people bring water from far away to their community. We also found reference about inequality in access to drinking water between rich and poor households.
We also got inspirations from the suit that collect fluids produced by the human body, sweats, tears, etc and recycle them to drinkable water so that to utilize more water resource. This is also a way to help with water crisis around the world.
Tutorial and finalizing ideas:
From the tutorial, we were thinking it’s necessary to have a narrative to tell our story about water. Also, we had two directions sorted out: Water distribution or water utilization through recycling.
After discussion with the team, we thought about the recycling syste
m is more of a long-term project because it needs more knowledge related. So for this brief, we think it’s good to go with the idea of water distribution.
After discussion with the team, we thought about the recycling syste
m is more of a long-term project because it needs more knowledge related. So for this brief, we think it’s good to go with the idea of water distribution.
As for the narrative, we want to set our scenario in a dystopia society. In those communities facing water scarcity, it would be a very horrible thing if just one authority party controls all water resources and they can also make decisions on to give water to which family.
Due to the timeframe of this design brief, we decided to starting build prototypes from this direction, and we can add more thinking to the design while we making it. We want to make two suits, one is the person give out water which is also the authority holds all the water resources, another one is the receiver who receives water from authority.
Due to the timeframe of this design brief, we decided to starting build prototypes from this direction, and we can add more thinking to the design while we making it. We want to make two suits, one is the person give out water which is also the authority holds all the water resources, another one is the receiver who receives water from authority.
Test and Prototype:
First, we want to test out if water can flow well when we wrap tubes around the body. And also we want to use waterproof material on the suits is better for the design.
In the meantime, we started to make the suit of the authority.
In the meantime, we started to make the suit of the authority.
We used found materials, tried to make a a water container. When we designed this, we thought about the humps on caramel which are also used to store water. It would be interesting if we can borrow this idea on clothes.
After adding the coloring liquid, we thought maybe we can consider the liquid as nutrient solutions, changing it to vein injection makes the meaning more powerful and clear to understand.
Presentation:
We also add sound when doing the walk, as well as some makeup on the receiver which to make the scene more real.
Feedback:
1. Consider more people wear it, thinking about the community sharing idea
2. The garment design is good
3. Color considerations about water-related, black can cause heat on water
4. Sound at the show is good, matches well with scene
Reflection:
I became interested in the study of and references to the issue of a water scarcity. We honestly believed that black is not a good colour for water since it can absorb heat based on the criticism we received regarding the colour we picked. While we gave it some thought, we didn't modify it. I believe it's because we weren't really clear about what we were doing before we did it, so it was late when we thought about it and there wasn't much fabric or other supplies available. I'm hoping that I can consider as many elements and specifics as I can the next time we develop a prototype. I also learned that in this brief, how does the garment look is the least thing to consider. The importance is if the garment can actually offer some kind survival protection.
Reference:
Environ. Sci. Technol. 2013, 47, 3, 1222–1230. Publication Date:December 31, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1021/es303345p
Igini, M. (2022) One woman's mission to fight water scarcity in Africa, Earth.Org. Available at: https://earth.org/one-womans-mission-to-fight-water-scarcity-in-africa/ (Accessed: January 28, 2023).