MOTION SENSITIVE DRESS

A dress made for movement

As part of the Make Fashion inaugural runway presentation, traditional embroidery techniques were combined with LED e-textile technology to explore ideas of light, movement and performance. The piece highlights the unique nature of wearable art and the connection that inevitably forms between the art and its wearer.

This garment has been featured at CES 2014, the nationally-televised The Makers China Awards Ceremony, and Xiamen Fashion Week 2015. It is still on tour as part of Make Fashion's archive, and frequently featured at events and on social media.

Designed with a dancer in mind and modified from a vintage 1960s Pierre Cardin pattern, the garment was hand embroidered to showcase the technological system used, with accelerometers placed on the shoulders, hips and ribcage. While dancing, the body’s movements become (literally) highlighted with light.

To facilitate the easy explanation of the technology, all elements of the e-textile system were placed on the exterior of the garment; the embroidery becomes at once decorative and didactic.

Headpiece designed by Hannah Newton.

Completed: 2013

Make Fashion is an internationally recognized showcase of wearable art and technology founded in Calgary, Canada to support and foster the vibrant and growing hacking/making culture that exists around the world, and to connect people with new ideas and technologies in an accessible and participatory format. Designers with little background in technology (and technologists with little background in design) collaborate to create unique works of wearable art that combine fashion and technology in a wide variety of mediums. The work culminates in a wearable art and technology show each Spring.