Blog Post 1 (Lectures)

The better lives unit is something that has very much interested me as I think that the topics it covers is a much needed discussion, especially as we will be the future of this industry. It will give us a chance to experience other courses and challenge ourselves. During the first two weeks of better lives we are required to watch three lectures per week and one unit briefing. I watched the lectures at home and dowloaded the slides to help me create in depth notes. The first lecture I watched was the one on Power by Julia Crew. I found this was a great start to discuss power within fashion, money, media, consumer, protests and ourselves. She talked about where dominance lays and why, looking through history, advertising and consumer and protests. This was a very engaging lecture to start off the unit and I felt that it created some energy and peaked my interest. It is clear how important each of the lectures are in creating a dialogue and how there are so many factors that effect the industry and what the future holds for us. The Inclusion lecture by Laura Salisbury especially is very insightful as to what the future of technology and fashion could do to benefit and aid in assisting people who have suffered from a stroke to facilitate the recovery of upper limb functions with the use of smart textiles. Laura’s research on brain stimulation techniques integrated within a smart wearable textile has been an incredible development. Fashion touches every single person in one way or another. To have ingenuity be used within textiles to be inclusive of those with a condition of some kind wether that be a disability or restriction after an accident, this technology could help so many people carry out everyday functions with more ease and improve someones quality of life. There are limitations but also opportunities such as the example of Yves Béhar’s Fuse project. He is a Swiss designer with an award winning design called the Aura Power-suit. A suit that produces wearable strength. Motors, sensors and AI embedded into a lightweight, flexible fabric assist in creating movement. For example, core strength declines with age. The power suit augments yours strength by aligning electric muscles with your natural muscles, actuating at the same time to assist in you movement. From a position of sitting to the transition of standing, the suit will help support the torso, legs and hips by creating shocks that assist the muscles strength. This particular example shows the possibilities that could be made with this sort of technology in the future. I think this lecture has given me an insight in to designs that could spark creativity and ingenuity within this industry and help in creating better lives.