Embodied Design Ideation (EDI)¶
Day 1¶
Use of our senses and body as a space for designing (instead of mind maps, brainstoriming, sketching). Use of intuition and tacit knowledge as a tool for design.
Alternate embodied explorations and group reflection to check if our design makes sense. Iterations to enhance the fitting of the garment on the body depending on the movement explored and the fabric chosen.
Phenomenology: our body is how we know the world.
1) What are ou adding to the body? What is being disrupted? 2) What does this disruption make you aware of? What is being destabilized? 3) What can this process be used for? What emerges?
Idées: mauvaises habitudes de posture, ronger ses ongles à disrupt. Disrupt des mauvaises poses qui peuvent causer des blessures en sport par ex un ligament.
Material I chose: ouate and recycled polyester thread.
Feels like a cloud. I am very sleepy, I want to put my face on it. Too much movement makes it uncomfortable (streching, it has to be very loose) and uneven surfaces of the body are hanging up on the skin (crusts, nails that I am biting, earrings) Many layers make it comfy like a blanket. Non strechy material
Material invites you to stay still in a certain position when it is tied tight to the body. When it is loose, it gives a nice impression of lightness and freedom. It cuts from the wind and keeps us warm.
I had the idea to make a sleeve out of it, from the shape of the material I had and also from the cushony/cloudy feeling the fabric gave me. I felt it could be a nice texture to put your face on for a nap.
The sleeve is very puffy on the shoulder so that it is really loose. That was made using pleats. The entiere forearm is double-layered so that the fabric stays flat and comfortable when putting my face on it.
Day 2¶
On the second day, I decided to explore more of the movements I could do when using this fabric. Unfortunately, movement is limited when sleeping, so I changed directions and decided to explore a bit more of the feeling of lightness given by the fabric. The sleeve was feeling very light and reminded me some ballet dance arm positions I like to rehearse at home from time to times.
I also remembered how the technicity of ballet is more driven towards the legs, how I would feel cold when the ballet shows would be held outdoors and that one of the key aspects of this kind of dance is to always keep back straight and shoulders low.
I thus chose an elastic fabric thread to try and maintain my low-shoulders-straight-back position. This is what I came out with, that would indeed maintain my position in place but the "sharpness" of the string would hurt my armpits and cut the blood flow.
I then decided to try the same white ouate fabric for the making of this posture maintaining tool, since it is not very extensible and causes discomfort when pressed too much. The positions of the fabric thread is causing it to strech when bad back posture is maintained, so the fabric would be perfect! It worked indeed and additionnaly made some noise when it was too streched, which is also a good posture indicator!
Here is the pinned prototype with the two sleeves and the posture-corrector.
Day 3¶
On day 3, I explored more ways to make the prototype better adapted and how actually make the prototype by sewing it. I made some more embodied ideation on the sleeves, based on the movement I was studying and the lightness feeling I was trying to achieve. Since the targeted movement always implied curved arms, I wanted explored the addition of ruffles and pleats. Ruffles at the wrist actually gave a stronger feeling of heaviness, so it was abandonned, but pleats on the inside of the elbow actually made the move more natural. I also reduced the size of the hem since it was bringing more heaviness.
Once I had decided on that final prototype, I could finally do the sewing ! Georgina helped me choose the technique to sew the sleeves to the posture maintener.