Designing digital transformable fashion and textiles for emotional durability

Digital transformable fashion and textiles in HCI can satisfy dynamic affordances and mediate communication through sensory experience, which has been regarded as a design strategy for emotional durability in experiential and emotional aspects (Koo et.al, 2014; Wang et al., 2018). Existing digital fashion products can react to body movements, project inner psyche, produce therapeutic effects and so on. However, it remains unclear how emotional durability design framework revolutionize fashion design thinking and practice-oriented methods (e.g., pattern cutting, draping, and sewing). This paper identified the design criteria in relation to emotional durability, including designing for versatility, perceived quality, biophilic expressiveness and hybrid aesthetics. Also, we conducted two practice-led projects to understand how the design frameworks fit in various contexts. One of the projects is PneuMuscle, a transformable remote-control garment, and the other is E-coral, a touch-sensitive transformable textile installation. During critical making process, a sewing technique based pneumatic textile system was developed to realise expressive movements. Somaesthetics was utilised to design transformable structures in relation to body movements, muscle structures, and tactile sensations to improve user experience and affective engagement. Unorthodox construction methods were developed such as sculptural thinking strategy, ambiguous pattern making, and a movement centric approach. Hybrid aesthetics were expressed by combining fashion design languages with technologies. In addition, to evaluate the effectiveness of the design approach toward emotional durability, participants were invited to conduct wear tests, interact with the product, and finish questionnaires to gather feedback. The findings have been interpreted to illustrate future design possibilities.