In the last few posts we looked at projects and events included in the Milan Design Week schedule that had some interesting connections with fabrics, textiles and fashion. Let's continue the thread by briefly focusing on a fashion designer part of Frame's showcase entitled "What's the Matter? – Design for a phygital world" (Via G. Sacchi 5/7, Milan, until today 17th April).
Together with interaction designer Bjørn Karmann and textile designer Kristine Boesen, fashion designer Julie Helles Eriksen, conceived an innovative project entitled "Abstract", revolving around an interactive tool that can help generating made-to-measure garments. Yet that's not all.
Her pieces take the idea of customisation to the next level since her designs are conceived as extremely personal products: the fashion designer analyses via a web tool the stories sent her by the customers. This data is then elaborated into a unique pattern, while a subsequent analysis of the customer's facial expressions (explored through a webcam) influences the colour of the pattern.
Everything is then tranformed into a textile that is then employed to make unique garments. Customers are therefore actively involved in the creative process and the resulting designs are extremely unique, expressing the style and personality of the wearer. 
Eriksen's project tackles one important aspect of the fashion industry: the possibility of producing very personal products that the wearers will cherish forever as they are embedded with patterns generated by their own personal data.
This stronger emotional connection with a garment ensures wearers will take care of them and pass them on: specific garments decorated with personal patterns could indeed be considered not just as highly individual pieces, but as physical archives, storing bits and pieces of information regarding our lives.
The text that generates a pattern could indeed be anything – including a recipe, a song or a special memory – and the garment produced could be left behind to a dear one, turning into a unique memento.
Eriksen's products are manufactured on demand, they therefore represent a sustainable and conscious way of using materials and producing limited collections of garments. The pieces displayed as part of the Milan event (some of them including zips by YKK) were just a way to visualise the idea behind the "Abstract" concept, but the designer guarantees that, while new styles will be produced and marketed on her site, the final garments will always be characterised by the customers' preferences. Now, that's what I call customisable sustainability.
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