Living Clothing is a garment designed to empower women by making
them feel confident, raise their self-esteem and express their
fashionable side. Our concept is based on research into the
psychological impact posture and presence has on people and gender
inequality in leadership roles in workplaces; using this research we
have created a garment that helps the target user to feel more
confident at work, in team meetings and client negotiations, and
enriches their social activities after work.
Living Clothing consists of two main features, the shape extensions
and the light interaction. The shape of the dress extension mimics
the Medici collar and will be triggered by the user's posture and is
mainly used during working time, to gain the benefits of posture and
presence. When the user holds the body upright and performs chest
out and head up (positive posture), the shoulders of the dress will
extend upward. We are linking positive posture with an enhanced
appearance and presence, giving the user the benefits that posture
can provide, as well as altering their physical appearance.
The interactive light section is mainly used for after-work social
events. However, the user can dictate whether to activate this
function, allowing them to choose the right occasion to experience
and enjoy this feature during working hours. Otherwise, our use case
is when the user finishes a busy workday, they can switch on the
dress light function. Lights will turn on when the user turns on the
control switch on the garment and will gently pulse while turned on.
The dress's fabric will diffuse the lights across and the user can
also choose the prefered light colours.
Technical Description
Below is a description of the materials, hardware and software used
to build the prototype of the living garment.
The living garment is a dress made up of cloth fabric, elastic,
nylon straps and adjusters, neo-pixel light strips, vibration
motors, touch sensors, flex sensors, wiring, and several servo
motors.
Neck and shoulder movement section
To demonstrate our Living Clothing concept, we have created a
shape-changing dress that can glow and pulse colours when desired.
Depending on posture it changes shape in the collar and shoulder
areas. It is designed to fit various figures, allowing most
audiences to try it during our exhibition. Underneath the dress, a
harness will be fitted to the user. On this harness is a flex
sensor. In the 'positive posture' (shoulders back, chest forward),
the sensor is pulled and sends a signal to the parent board. This
will trigger the motor that pulls on the shoulder levels and changes
the shape of the garment. The elastic band that the flex sensor is
housed on is joined with an adjustable harness at the front. We
designed the harness so that it can be adjusted at the front, back
and both armholes, so it fits different body types. We will be able
to adjust the harness so that it can sit snugly on the user's body
and allow the flex sensor to read properly.
When users are in a relaxed or slouch posture, the harness will not
be stretched, and the flex sensor is bent. When users are in the
positive posture, the harness will be stretched at the front
resulting in the stretch of the elastic and sending a signal to the
Arduino board via the flex sensor. Two servo motors sit underneath
the shoulder extensions. Their servo arms are attached to the
material, hence when the servo arms move, the shoulder extensions
move with them. When the user enters a positive posture, the
vibration motor buzzes once on the harness and the servo arms raise
the shoulder extensions. This vibration is included to inform the
user of the state of the garment. If the user has deployed the
extensions, and then returns to negative posture (relaxed or
slouched), the dress vibrates twice, to warm them to fix their
posture, or expect the dress to undeploy. There are two sets of
vibration warnings, with 4 seconds between them. To give the user
ample time to adjust their posture. Finally, the dress will vibrate
three times then retract the extensions.
Interactive neo pixel lights
Over forty neo-pixel make up the lighting section of the garment.
Neo-pixel strips are soldered with wires to create two long strips
of lights. These are attached to the lining fabric of the garment
and under several layers of various textiles. These textiles have
been selected to diffuse the lights, creating a softer lighting
effect. Additionally, a touch sensor is connected to the light
circuit and placed within the collar of the dress. By 'fixing their
collar' users can activate the neo-pixel display and fading feature.
The lights fade in/ out and diffuse softly through the garment. The
lights are unable to function while the shape feature is in
operation, to avoid the lights taking attention away from the user.
If the lights are on and the shape is deployed, the lights will be
switched off no matter what section of the fading function they are
in. Additionally, by using the touch sensor, a user can turn off the
lights when they see fit. However, once the LED lights are
triggered, they will stay lit up until the user switches the lights
off. The light band will then constantly cycle through the fading
feature. It will smoothly fade to 10% brightness and then back up to
100%.
On top of the LED strips, a layer of fabric consisting of glad wrap,
tissue paper, and lightweight textiles covers the lighting layer and
is designed to diffuse the light to make it less dazzling and a
smoother diffusion.
Final Statement
The Interaction Design Exhibit was a fantastic experience for us.
Our final prototype worked as intended with only minor technical
difficulties related to power banks and jittery servo motors. Our
exhibit consisted of several brochures, a poster describing the
concept, and a second poster describing the features of our garment
prototype, and rubber ducks. The exhibit was busier than
anticipated, and our team was non-stop pitching our concept to a mix
of staff and students, friends and family, and industry
representatitves. After a nervous start, we all grew into our pitch
and thoroughly enjoyed surprising people with the interactive
features of our garment. Our project was received well by most of
the people that heard our pitch and interacted with our project.
Attendees were surprised that they were able to wear the dress, and
by the fact that we made the dress ourselves and did not outsource
the production. Users reported that they did feel powerful and
confident while wearing our dress, and almost every person to try it
on was pleasantly surprised by the lighting feature. One unexpected
benefit of the garment was that even without wearing the garment,
people walking past or listening to our team's pitch were conscious
of their posture. A few interesting insights from the exhibit were
that a lot of male-presenting people enjoyed wearing the dress and
felt confident while wearing it. It would have been interesting to
have an alternative, more masculine, item of clothing to allow other
types of people to engage with the concept.
Some future directions that arose from conversations had during the
exhibit, are centred around the function of the lights, the shape of
the shoulder deployment section, and the level of control granted to
the user. If we continued this project, we would love to add more
details to the LED features. The ability to change colours while
wearing the dress, to manipulate the effects that the lights play
(not just fade up/ down) and have some way for the colour to respond
to the environment. Furthermore, we would like to explore other ways
to enhance the shape of the user through moving parts of the
garment, through scales similar to our initial prototype, or
features like our final shoulder deployment area, but located on
other parts of the body. Finally, we would like to give our users
further control over the garment and its shape and colour features.
Rather than deciding that colour features can't be operated when the
shape deployment is active, we'd like to give the user the ability
to make that decision for themselves.
Overall the exhibit, and the project itself, has been an extremely
enjoyable process. There have been a lot of challenges over the
course of the semester, but rising to them and producing a final
project prototype that our audience enjoyed interacting with, and a
concept that was received positively was a fantastic experience.