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There
are enough clothes in the world; we do not need another mainstream
fashion designer.
What
we need are experiments and those who are willing to experiment.
We designers are too safe today relying on the trends of the past
rather than innovating for the future.
I
think of all the ways my generation of women are different from
previous generations: we' re working more, traveling more, dependent
on our cell phones, hooked on the Internet, and obsessively checking
our e-mail. In short, we are more mobile and heavily depend on
technology for all the things we do in our daily lives. But while
our roles and lifestyles have changed drastically over the last
40 years, the structure of our clothing, oddly, has not.
This
capsule collection is a series of concepts I developed in the
last year: color-changing inks, 3-D images, iPod clothing, and
light-up gear. Some serve a specific function while others are
for personal entertainment. It is not a solution, but rather a
first step, to tackling the aforementioned problem.
My
aim is to show that clothes can actually do something -- beyond
just looking good; they ought to facilitate and improve the way
we live. Whether they're waterproof cottons or iPods stitched
into our clothes, each piece displayed is a solution to a problem
I've encountered when wearing clothes in the city.
Each
piece is a collaboration with someone in the technology world.
It goes beyond the forced superficial fashion & tech marketing
pairings we've seen in recent years, and is based on a more organic
creative process. The technology itself is oftentimes concealed
in the design, so the clothes can maintain their design integrity.
I hope to show the fashion world that innovation goes beyond just
rearranging ruffles, and to convince tech companies that they
should invest further in these types of collaborations.
-
Angel Chang
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