Lecture: Fab Textiles
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Abstract
Fab Textiles project. Open sourcing fashion production for a global innovation ecosystem.
The fashion industry is one of the most traditional and the 2nd most pollutant in the world after oil. Today 20% of water pollution globally is caused by textile processing and consumers worldwide spent US$1.7 trillion on fashion in 2014. The production of the clothes we use is sustained over devastating social consequences in countries like Bangladesh and China, where labour exploitation holds the low prices we love to pay in H&M, Zara and the like. Fashion industry needs to change… More than 50 years ago, science fiction authors such as Asimov “predicted” video conferencing systems, remote learning, artificial intelligence, and mostly all the advanced technologies we are deploying in our life today. The ubiquity of knowledge and information is transforming culture and learning processes for people, changing completely the way we work, live and play. Hyper connectivity through digital platforms is becoming symbiotic with the physical realm, creating synergies between bits and atoms in places like Fab Labs and Makerspaces all over the planet. Digital fabrication laboratories are becoming incubators for innovative technologies and creators of spin off and disruptive initiatives that are being implemented in the “real” world. The possibilities to conduct experimental research in a open laboratory gives the physical and mental space for innovative re-thinking, and offer the resources for visions to be materialized, tested, developed and make an active impact in people’s life, no as a linear process, but as a spiral iteration and implementation in the reality. In Fab Textiles we are developing and implementing a new approach on to how create, produce and distribute fashion elements, by using distributed manufacturing infrastructures and knowledge networks. We are experimenting with the human body and human culture, by recycling, hacking and sensing it, creating feedback loops with project development, where materials, aesthetics and customization play equal and important roles. Fab Textiles offers a cross-disciplinary education and research platform, where production and culture through advanced technologies are making impact in the way we think and act towards the fashion industry. We work locally, while creating connected communities globally. We are not waiting for things to change, we are changing them from the ground up.
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