The Shelterwear project was about surviving in an increasing hostile virtual world.
Cocooning, protection, fortification. How can one protect oneself in a digital or virtual environment against unwanted influences? This question was the prelude for a project about digital shelter. Suppose you’re in cyberspace. That implicates you’re data. How do you protect yourself against hostile data, viruses, hacks?
Influenced by this fascination we started to design shelter-spaces.
But influence of the virtual world does’t stop at our screen, so the we extended the project to our reality. We transformed 3D-designs from our virtual world to wearable objects, like mobile shelter spaces.
Wearable shelter.
We could be approaching a time in which our virtual representation could become more important than your actual appearance. The possibilities of virtual reality are still very much considered Terra Incognita. We set out to explore this unknown world and make connections with our reality. Perhaps fashion, where abstract terms as image, identity and representation are just as essential as for an avatar in virtual reality, can offer the perfect connection between the real and the virtual world.
The design for the Future Hakama was part of the Shelterwear project.
On February 5th 2005 we participated with this design in the International Fashion Design Competition, in Tokyo, Japan. Our entry was one of the 10 selected in the category ‘Kimono’, and we were invited to show our design on the catwalk in Tokyo, Japan.
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Title: Hakama
Description: Wearable object
Dimensions: 200 x 40 x 100 cm
Date: February 5th, 2005