Uncomfortable Clothes

9. September 2020, 17.30 Uhr via zoom

Fashion & Technology starts the new talk series "Uncomfortable Clothes" with a keynote by OTTO VON BUSCH.

Wednesday September 9th, 5:30 pm CET
us02web.zoom.us
Passcode: 8wVYXX

Nobody likes uncomfortable clothes - and yet we all wear them.
The pants, sewn by children.
The clothing size, designed for standardized bodies.
Sensors, discriminating by skin colour.

But once you take a closer look, our clothes pinch all over.
Scratch at our indifference.
Scrape our blissful ignorance.

As a second skin, clothing acts as a membrane between us and the uncomfortable truths,
the conditions of a western-centered "civilization".
Fashion implements and affirms unsustainable conditions.
At the same time, fashion holds the potential for liberation.

The mirror that “Uncomfortable Clothes” holds up wants to make the causalities behind the smooth surfaces transparent.
Make the immaterial visible in the material.
Show potential.
Of a changing world of representations as well as the unrepresented.
 
What codes are implemented in this system?
How can it be hacked?
How can fashion become uncomfortable?

"Uncomfortable Clothes" is a series of talks on the complex dimensions of fashion, technologies and clothing and their constitution, hosted by Fashion & Technology.

We are delighted to announce our first speaker: Otto von Busch.
His presentation will be on Wednesday September 9th, 5:30 om CET.
You can join us via zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84896768129?pwd=SVMyZHRYNEk3bnZTODltL2xPKzljdz09
Passcode: 8wVYXX

Uncomfortable Clothes #01

Fashion Frictions
Otto von Busch

There is a friction haunting fashion. Many of the basic qualities of design shares an uncomfortable fit with the way we interact with clothes: They are irrational. They are neither functional, nor user-friendly. Fashion is difference but also sameness, the new as well as the old, the cloning of idols as well as their rejection. It is a sense of pride as much as shame. And it is not uncommon that we feel an urge to lie to others about what we wear and our recent purchases. What is going on here? How are we to deal with the shallows and depths of fashion?

Otto von Busch is Associate Professor of Integrated Design at Parsons School of Design, and holds a PhD in design from the School of Design and Craft at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. In his research he explores how the powers of fashion can be bent to achieve a positive personal and social condition with which the Everyperson is free to grow to their full potential. He has for over fifteen years examined fashion beyond consumerism, aesthetic decrees and arbitrary authority, and worked towards establishing fashion practice as a shared capability, biosocial energy, a process of mutual flirting, a play of embodied attentions. His latest books are The Psychopolitics of Fashion: Conflict and Courage Under the Current State of Fashion, (Bloomsbury 2020), and The Dharma of Fashion: A Buddhist Approach to Our Life with Clothes, (Schiffer 2020).