Wearing Digital Bodies: Designing and Experiencing Dress as Poly-Body Objects at the Intersection of the Physical and the Digital
Jan Tepe
2022 (English). In: Proceedings of IFFTI Conference International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes. Nottingham, United Kingdom. April 5-8, 2022. pp. 1-18.(Refereed) [Artistic work] Published
Advances in digital and augmented reality (AR) technology create opportunities for more body-diverse methods of designing dress. However, while the clothing industry uses such technologies to explore digital venues in promoting its designs, most designs are made to resemble physical garments for the same body types. This research aimed to investigate alternative morphological relations between the physical human body and digital dress to enable more body-diverse design practices within the field of fashion. A three-day workshop was conducted with undergraduate fashion design students to critically examine the hypotheses of this research. The students were tasked with using three-dimensional scanning, computer-aided design (CAD), and AR technology to design digital dress-related designs for different body shapes and sizes. The performative act of projecting digital dress onto a physical body created wearable poly-body dress expressions, the morphological qualities of which were experienced by the participants simultaneously physically and digitally. The participants described their experiences as turning the body and dress into designable poly-body expressions, and changed their perception of the body in relation to dress. In addition to walking around ‘inside’ the designed items, i.e. using them as pieces of clothing to cover the body, the participants were also able to walk around ‘inside’ of and interact with designed items as they would an architectural space. The fashion system can benefit from artistic investigations of digital and AR technology for creating dress alternatives that may contribute to a more diverse and inclusive appreciation of body-dress expressions.