Well-being, Half-way products and ways to enable the consumer to become an active user.

How to motivate the consumer to get involved within the process of design? How to nourish the emotional attachment towards products? These are two main questions that have been in the air for a long time. Relating this of course to my thesis research I am trying to find ways to encourage and enable consumers to become active participants in the design process. So they are able to learn new skills, and though get the freedom of choosing over the only ready made products. Giving the responsibility and the choice into their hands."The sweing machine is an insturment for liberation and skills are a path to freedom!" (Otto von Busch) One way of doing so is that the designer, plays a role of facilitating the consumers with a set of skills and tools, providing knowledge and by doing so enhances their own creativity and imagination, to start the change by getting involved. Regarding to Ezio Manzini, the opportunities for designers lie in offering new solutions to the already existing ones, that tend to be seen as better and offer the user the chance to gain further abilities. “.. in order to promote sustainable wellbeing, one has to support the capabilities of people and communities to live better consuming less, i.e., their capabilities to rely less on products and services, and more on contextual qualities and on the possibilities for them to be active.“ (Manzini, 2008)

The following project “multiskirt” is my first try out and still be considered as a work in process to realise one of those ideas in a more practical approach. I am of course aware there are already made very great projects by numerous well known designers like Martin Margiela, who contributed in 2004 to the “Design_Download series”. he offered the downloadable pattern of a half-finished dress to be completed by designers or interested users.(picture: http://showstudio.com, pattern of Martin Margiela Dress)

Over that there has been preformed a very interesting research series by Kate Fletcher and Mathilda Tham on the lifetime and use of several garments. “This project is about trying to match fast and slow garments with fast and slow rhythms of use to save resources while simultaneously providing for people's symbolic AND material needs.” (Fletcher,Tham online) Regarding this research they have outlined a series of future scenarios, how can the future of several items be seen in a more sustainable context. The detailed description of the project can be found here: http://www.katefletcher.com/lifetimes/index.html

The Cookbooks by Otto von Busch are another valuable source of projects and ideas based on the idea of user-customised garments. They are a collection of methods to redesign garments and so empower consumers to make clothes really their own. Otto von Busch is known for researching and encouraging the fashion-hacking culture. “>self_passage< is a brand and research project that explores how fashion can be used for empowerment, self-development and personal growth instead of being a phenomenon of top-down decrees and collective anxiety.” (http://www.selfpassage.org/) Here is a snapshot of one of his workshops on youtube. Fashion – Otto von Busch lecture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euk06ElNNH4