Shifting Spaces in Fashion:
Approaching Digital Design Spaces from a Physical Perspective
Research Publication
2023
Design Workshop
Digital design processes reduce the degree to which designers physically engage with materials when designing garments. While extended-reality technology such as augmented reality and virtual reality can address the lack of physical involvement in digital design processes, it has yet to be fully embraced by fashion-design practitioners in academia and industry.
A workshop with students explored extended-reality technology as an enabler of ‘design interspaces’, which mediate physical experiences and interactions with digital material based on spatial and technological affordances. The design interspaces that emerged as hybrid design spaces allowed varying degrees of physical engagement with digital materials.
Workshop-based design activities involving extended-reality technology suggested that hybrid design spaces allow craft-based design activities that are commonly reliant on intricate human-body movements, such as knitting and draping, to be translated into the digital. They also suggested that physical engagement with digital content in an immersive manner can lead to consideration of wearability and interaction-based body-dress relationships during design processes.
The findings contribute to the discourse on digital design practices within fashion, as they open up for thoughts regarding what may be lost when engaging in digital-only design processes that are streamlined for specific ways of working. The suggested usage of extended-reality technology reintroduces the concept of ‘messiness’ through physical engagement, which can contribute to engagement with digital technology in fashion design beyond considerations such as efficiency and productivity, leading to a move towards more diverse and versatile digital and hybrid design experiences.
Author: Jan Tepe