Weekly Blogs

Week 1

Soft Circuit

For this week’s interactive fashion class, I built a soft-circuit “parking garage” that lights up when a fabric car parks. The system is a simple series circuit: the garage floor is a sheet of conductive fabric stitched by conductive thread to the LED’s cathode (−). The LED’s anode (+) is connected to the car’s internal coin-cell positive terminal. Inside the car, the battery sits behind an insulating layer; its negative terminal is routed to the outside through conductive thread, creating a small exposed contact on the back of the car. When the car slides into the garage, that exposed negative contact touches the garage’s conductive fabric, completing the loop and switching the LED on as a parking “confirmation.”

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Reading Reflections

For me, fashion is not only clothes, but also a way to show who I am. I am interested in fashion because it lets me be creative and also express my identity. When I choose what to wear, it shows my values and my background. Sometimes I prefer simple style, but other times I like to try something new.

Ying Gao sees fashion as more than beauty or function. She uses fashion to ask questions and to make people think about society and technology. I agree with her idea that fashion can be critical and experimental. But for me, fashion also has a personal meaning in daily life, not only cultural critique. Still, her projects give me inspiration to think deeper.

I believe the future of fashion will mix technology, sustainability, and interactivity. Fashion will not only be about trends but also about responsibility and new experiences. Ying Gao’s work shows how clothes can respond to people or the environment, which I think is very exciting.

In this course, I hope to learn how fashion can become interactive and more connected to people’s lives. I want to see how design can tell cultural stories and give new ways for people to express themselves.

Week 2 - Directional Hearing

Inspired by Madeline Schwartzman's speech, I realized that our senses are not passive. We do not receive the environment like it is providing information to us. Instead, we try hard to catch and absorb information ourselves. Senses are the ways we connect our individuals to the world. In my experiment, I want to change the way we observe and behave in the world by distorting the sense of hearing.

Before, our ear enables us to hear sounds coming from all around us — in front, behind, above, below, and to the sides. I would like to create an attachment that allow people to only hear in the horizontal direction. In this way, people have to alter the way they hear in order to hear from different directions. I designed a head-mounted directional hearing enhancement device. When worn, people can use the cylinder to amplify sounds coming from the sides, while the sponge surrounding the cylinder dampens sounds from other directions. As a result, users need to adjust their habits by pointing their ears—rather than the front of their face—toward the sound source. For example, when having a conversation, the listener will hear more clearly if they turn their side toward the speaker.

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Week 3 - Textile and Reading Response

Textiles I created

The top one is made of paper clips.

The bottom left one is weaved using grass.

The bottom right one is made of wood shavings.

Reading Response

Original Readings:

FASHION, IDENTITY , AND SOCIAL CHANGE &

Wearable Technologies: Between Fashion, Art, Performance, and Science (Fiction)

What motivates individuals to choose their particular styles of dress? In what ways does clothing play a role in shaping a person’s identity as male, female, or belonging to different gender identities? Can you give some examples that are not from the reading?

Clothing and fashion is a way to express identities and satisfying emotional needs. In terms of expressing identities, there are two different aspects, social identity and personal identity. Often, particular styles of clothing suggest a unique social identity. For example, wearing school uniforms suggests they are students. Also, in the past, fashion is a way to show social status as people can only wear certain clothing based on their social class. For expressing personal identity, it is more common in modern society. People wear certain types of fashion to recognize the value behind certain culture or group of people. Satisfying emotional needs is another reason why people choose particular styles of fashion. By wearing fashion, people reinforces their sense of belonging to certain group identity. Clothing covers up body parts, which also give people sense of security. Also, they gain attention from the public, which satisfies the need of attention, and thus gaining confidence as well.

In tradition, fashion is a way to distinguish genders. Women have to wear dresses, and the clothing must show their body curves sexually. Fashion is more like a decoration rather than a handy tool to women. It also constrains the mobility of women, thus making sure they are mostly at home and submissive. By contrast, men have to wear loose clothes that better suits for working. Nowadays, traditional norms in gender is blurred and the boundaries of fashion between different genders is also less obvious. Females started wearing pants after industrial revolution, and recently men started wearing long skirts, which was considered women's fashion before. LGBTQ groups also came up with different fashion styles such as leather boots, rainbow color, and etc.

2. Reflect on how fashion influence our perceptions of identity and gender. How do you think WT, by becoming “a part of us”, could challenge or redefine in the future our understanding of personal identity and the boundaries of the self?

As mentioned previously, fashion always influences how we see identity and gender. Clothes give meaning to who we are, for example if someone wears a suit we may think of them as professional, or if someone wears a dress we may connect it with femininity. At the same time, fashion also makes space for breaking these rules. Many young people today use unisex or mixed styles to show that gender is not fixed. In this way, fashion is not only about decoration, but also a tool to create or change how we see ourselves and others.

When wearable technology becomes “a part of us,” it can go even further. WT can show our body data, emotions, or even connect us to the environment in real time. If fashion now changes how we look, WT may change how we exist. For example, clothes with sensors may display mood or health, which makes identity more dynamic, not only about gender or appearance. This could challenge the old border between self and outside world, because part of our body is extended into technology. In the future, this may help us think about identity as something flexible and open, not only limited by male/female or traditional roles.

Week 4 - Project 1 Prototype

Inspiration

The Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens) is a small tropical species known for its vivid colors and aggressive behavior, especially among males. During fights, it raises its scales by contracting tiny muscles beneath the skin, lifting each scale outward like armor plates. This action makes the fish appear larger and more intimidating while enhancing the reflection of its iridescent colors as a visual signal of dominance. This biological mechanism inspired my interactive fashion design — I translated the fish’s dynamic scale movement into a wearable surface where artificial “scales” can lift or flatten in response to emotional or environmental changes.

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Prototype Demo

Project Introduction and Concept

Inspired by the Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens), this wearable shoulder armor explores the relationship between visibility, attention, and self-expression. The piece features a surface of overlapping “scales” threaded together by thin strings. These strings are connected to a small winch mechanism controlled by the wearer’s head movement. When the head turns, the strings pull and flip the scales upward, revealing their vivid, reflective side; when relaxed, the scales lie flat in a muted, matte tone, blending quietly into the surroundings.

This interactive transformation gives the wearer agency over how they are perceived — the freedom to become visible or invisible at will. It metaphorically mirrors the Betta’s behavioral display, allowing human users to negotiate between concealment and exposure, protection and attraction, through subtle bodily gestures.

How it relates to Paris in Burning

This project connects to Paris is Burning because both talk about how people use appearance and performance to control how others see them. In the film, the ballroom participants express their identity and power through fashion, movement, and attitude. They use their looks as a way to be seen and to build confidence in a society that often ignores them.

My wearable design does something similar. The scales on the shoulder piece can flip to become shiny and visible or lie flat and quiet. This gives the wearer the freedom to decide when to show themselves and when to stay hidden. Like in Paris is Burning, the act of changing one’s visibility becomes a way to express identity and take back control of one’s image.

Week 5 -

Project 1 Documentation

Click to redirect to the project page.

Week 7 - Mechanism Research and Practice

servo.MOV

servo2.mov

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Week 8 - Inflatables & Iterations Of The Mechanism

Inflatables

These right two pictures are the two inflatables created in the class.

The left picture is shows the circuit used behind.

Iterations of the Mechanism

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Week 10 - Project 2 Proposal & Prototype

PROJECT PROPOSAL

My final project began with a quiet suspicion that the work we carry eventually begins to carry us. To explore this, I chose the black business suit—the global costume of competence—and re-engineered it into something alive enough to reveal what the suit normally conceals.

Across its surface, I built an exoskeleton of double-sided scales: matte black on one face, iridescent color on the other. A system of servos, linkages, pressure sensors, and light sensors allows the suit to “feel” the weight of the objects associated with labor: laptops, documents, folders, devices. When I hold more of these tools, the suit responds by folding outward its black side, swallowing its own color, disciplining itself into uniformity. When the burdens fall away, the suit exhales—scales turning over to expose their bright, restless interior, a self returning to the surface.

prototype.mp4

Demo Video of the Prototype

This work is grounded in Simmel’s writing on conformity, Barthes’ symbolism of dress, Haraway’s cyborg identity, and biomimetic systems found in fish scales and kinetic garments by Ying Gao and Iris van Herpen. Through this wearable, I imagine a future in which clothing becomes an honest narrator of labor’s grip on individuality.

CONCEPTUAL RESEARCH

This project grows from a series of theoretical threads that intersect at the body.

Georg Simmel describes fashion as the tension between individuality and belonging—an ideal lens for interrogating the black suit as a tool of conformity.
Roland Barthes frames clothing as a system of signs; here, blackness becomes the sign of discipline, obedience, and corporate ritual.
Donna Haraway’s cyborg challenges the boundaries between human and machine, inspiring the integration of sensors and servos as extensions of the wearer’s emotional and physical state.
Labor theorists like Byung-Chul Han critique how work erodes the self, a theme embodied in the suit’s slow disappearance of color.
Aesthetic and structural inspirations came from biomimicry, especially the hinged movement of fish scales, and from kinetic fashion experiments by Ying Gao, Iris van Herpen, and Neri Oxman.

MECHANICAL DEVELOPMENT

The suit uses a multi-linkage system to coordinate the flipping of scales.
Servo motors generate force, transmitting motion through lightweight bars to each scale module.
Each scale is double-sided, with black on one surface and reflective color on the other.
Pressure sensors detect how much “work” (laptop, folder, devices) the wearer holds.
A light sensor helps sense the object.
Data flows into Arduino, driving the degree of color revealed.
Iterations included:
- Single-scale prototypes
- Dual-linkage tests for smoother rotation
- Arrays of scales to achieve “group movement”
- Final integration into the suit’s structure

This documentation traces not only technical adjustments but the evolution of how the suit learns to “behave.”

CONCLUSION & NEXT STEP

This project taught me that garments are far less patient than fabric suggests—every hinge, every servo, every choice of stiffness becomes a negotiation with the body. Many early attempts failed: scales jammed against each other, servos trembled under load, and the linkage system sometimes acted more like bones out of place than synchronized movement. But these failures slowed me down in a productive way, forcing me to redesign, simplify, and listen to how the material wanted to move.

What I am proudest of is not just the mechanism, but the honesty it allows. The suit finally expresses something we rarely articulate: how work shapes us, drains us, colors us, and sometimes erases us. The final design aligns with my intention to create a wearable that is kinetic yet human, technological yet emotional.

In the coming weeks, I plan to reinforce the linkage system, refine sensor logic for smoother transitions, and adjust the suit’s fit to better host the mechanical structure. For the runway, I will begin in full black. As I hand work objects to the audience, the suit will darken and brighten in real time—revealing its final spectrum only when the last burden leaves my hands.

Week 11 - Rhino for 3D Printing

We learned about more funcitons on Rhino this week. I got interested in 3d printing on fabrics. So I designed the patterns on Rhino, and 3D printed it on the fabric.

The way to print on fabric is to frist print 2-3 layers, then add a pause and put fabric onto the printed layers. The fabrics should be sticked to the plate so that it do not move. Then finish the printing.

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