With my defense ended a journey that had started with building an LED top-hat years before and the question what would happen if others could remotely control my appearance. In Finland, doctoral graduates receive a top hat as a symbol of their degree, which closes this cycle also metaphorically. My doctoral research investigated how technology might alter our everyday attire and how this will change the way we interact with each other. Imagine clothing and accessories that not only give comfort and reflect your style but respond to your emotions, social contacts, and online media.

Researchers articulated this promise of wearable digital technologies reshaping our social life two decades ago. However, even now, people’s wearable technology mainly exists for tracking personal health data. Existing research suggested that designs augmenting appearance often feel out of place.
My doctoral thesis examines this gap in everyday adoption. It presents studies of real-life practices of adorning with digital technology. We studied three cases in our exploration and designed novel wearable technology for and with people. The first, a unique fur shoulder accessory that imitates animalistic movements, explored how wearables can facilitate intimate connection by drawing strangers to touch. The second case explored the potential for sharing personal information through clothing across ordinary urban spaces. The final exploration engaged in the rich tradition of Finnish university students adorning boiler suits. For two years, we witnessed the students transform simple boiler suits into canvases of personal histories, equipped with sewing skills, cloth patches, accessories and intricate traditions. Designing an interactive cloth patch with the students showed how their online behaviour became part of their clothes. For example, the students started remixing online memes and using them to adorn their overalls.

This merging of clothing traditions and digital practices might have significant consequences when people start trolling and memeing with their clothes. We developed an approach to design that is open-ended and practices-oriented, and we demonstrate it in a practical design concept called ‘Memetic Expression’. These tools help technology and fashion designers work with ‘augmented adornment’ and navigate its social consequences.

Publication

  • Felix Anand Epp. 2023. Augmenting Appearance with Wearable Technology - Open-ended Practices-oriented Design for Adornment and Identity as Routes to Adoption. Aalto University. https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-64-1496-6