Fashion Design Commons^™

Lambani Textiles: Oscillating Between The Past And The Present, Beena Santosh Modathi, Anjali Karolia

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines the experiences of home-based women zardozi artisans in Bhopal, India, who use traditional embroidery skills to create fashionable products. It highlights the role of the traditional craft sector in promoting women's empowerment, enhancing economic well-being, and supporting sustainable development in the Global South. Through ethnographic research, including literature review and interviews, the study reveals the resilience of these artisans, many of whom come from low-income backgrounds with limited education. Despite modest earnings, Textiles embody narratives, legacies, and lineages. Indian traditional textiles, particularly those featuring strong Lambani embroidery, represent a dynamic interplay of ancestral techniques, motifs, and cultural …

Public Patriotism, Silent Dissent: Women And The Making Of Senninbari In Wartime Japan, Mariko Nagai

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

During the early years of the so-called “Fifteen Year War” (1931–1945), Japanese women and girls created senninbari when men received draft notices to serve. Often worn around soldiers’ waists underneath their uniforms, these sash-shaped talisman were embroidered with 1,000 red knots, each knot made by a woman. In a time when the Japanese government censored dissenting voices against its militaristic and nationalistic foreign and domestic policies, this government-encouraged gesture of stitching senninbari became one of the few ways in which women could voice their personal protests within patriarchal gender expressions (良妻賢母 “good wife, wise mother”). Senninbari’s design evolved with regional- …

Textile As Cultural Technology: The Evolution Of Robert Rauschenberg’S Jammers, 1975–6, Katya Oicherman

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Robert Rauschenberg suggested that any material has a “humanitarian reportage” or a history built into it, that opens art to the “strange and unpredictable” experience only comparable to everyday reality. Developing this idea, I will focus on the Jammers, a series of works with significant textile presence produced in 1975–76, and discuss how Rauschenberg’s relationship to textiles evolved from treating them as “materials” to recognizing them as cultural technologies. In 1975 he was on a fellowship in Ahmedabad, India, a period of intense experimentation.

Textiles were already a significant presence in his art, playing a subservient role of materials …

Inconclusive Objects: Sample Making As Inquiry-Driven Practice, Etta Sandry

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In Inconclusive Objects: Sample Making as Inquiry-driven Practice I will discuss craft sample making as a valuable practice of critical thought and experimentation. Craftspeople, artists, and designers make samples to practice technical skills and to demonstrate results on small scales. It is process work, typically used to learn a new technique or a hidden step on the way to a final product. However, as a cumulative process of research, material probing, and play, sampling is a critical aspect of design and creation. What can a closer study of sampling reveal about creative practice and knowledge production in craft and beyond? …

Textile Ways Of Thinking As A Trauma-Informed Design Tool To Research And Understand Communities, Smrti Ganesan, Nishanth Srikanth

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

There has been a shift in methodologies in the broader world of design. Today, co-design and participatory methods are a vital part of the modern designer's toolkit, and designers are finding new ways to interact with communities and design solutions that are more responsive to the actual needs of those communities.

Textile design has historically been a medium for expressing and processing traumatic experiences, reflecting individual and collective traumas in society. Textiles have also historically served not only as a form of artistic expression but also as a powerful tool in activism, particularly within feminist movements. Recent developments have seen …

Solidarity Dividend With Us Wool And Community Engagement To Address Socioeconomic Inequities, Helen X. Trejo, Angela Becerril

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

As a long-standing natural fiber, wool provides an opportunity for community engagement and reflexive practice. Our process involved sourcing wool from US sheep and wool farms in lower income areas and hands-on textile development, and intersectional reflection. Being at a Hispanic Serving Institution, informed approaches to engage with concepts, such as the “zerosum paradigm” and “Solidarity Dividend” based on Heather McGhee’s NY Times Best Selling book “The Sum of Us.” It explores how racism affects intergenerational wealth among minorities. The zero-sum paradigm is the idea that progress is a tradeoff; benefits to some is at an expense for others. The …

Lavenz, Valenz, Levenxë, Lavexha, Lavenzka: Woven Felted Blankets From The Korçë Region In Southeastern Albania, Alexis Zoto

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper will look at and document colors and patterns and motifs of woven and felted blankets from the Korçë region of southeastern Albania. Very little is published on these textiles. This paper will document the disappearing and under appreciated textile, and why are they no longer understood or valued. In Albania and in Albanian diaspora communities this textile has had different names in prewar, prewar Korçare dialect and now.

I will be drawing from information gathered interviewing parishioners who volunteered to share their heirlooms and information gathered from examining the textile(s). These heirlooms belong to members of multiple generations …

Exploring Hedonic And Utilitarian Aspects Through Perceived Warmth In Human-Designed Vs. Ai-Generated Fashion, Dooyoung Choi, Ha Kyung Lee

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

Among various ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) is used in the fashion industry, its utilization in design has sparked public discussion about the potential replacement of human designers by AI. Along with this critical question, it is imminent to examine how consumers would respond to designs by AI. The purpose of this study is to explore consumers’ perceptions toward a fashion product labeled as generated by an AI system, comparing it to the same product labeled as designed by a human designer. Specifically, drawing from existing literature, we examine if the design source affects consumers’ perceptions of a product …

Ai-Designed Clothing And Perceived Values: What Can Move Consumers' Minds With The Ai-Designed Clothing?, Dooyoung Choi, Ha Kyung Lee

STEMPS Faculty Publications

This study investigates the perceived values of AI-designed clothing (quality, emotion, ease) and their impact on willingness to pay (WTP) and word-of-mouth (WOM), with the moderating effect of gender differences. A total of 314 respondents completed the survey via MTurk. Participants watched a video clip demonstrating how an AI system creates various clothing designs by altering garment elements (e.g., style, size). After watching the video clip, they were asked to answer a series of questions about the AI-designed clothing and themselves. The collected data were analyzed using AMOS 26.0. Results showed that, for male and female consumers, the quality value …

Clothing Design Solutions For Children With Developmental Disabilities: A Scoping Review Protocol, Nagaveni N. Nayak, Shristi Shakya, Nachiket Gudi, Sonia Khurana, Sivakumar Gopalakrishnan, Veena Rao, Bhamini Krishna Rao

Rehabilitation Sciences Faculty Publications

Children with Developmental Disabilities (DD) often face significant challenges in performing dressing task, fundamental activities of daily living. Inability to accomplish this task independently significantly impacts participation in social and recreational activities, affecting Quality of Life (QoL). Additionally, burden on caregivers increases which in turn leads to stress and burnout. Addressing dressing-related challenges through innovative clothing designs enhances self-independence, alleviate caregiver burden, and improve QoL. However, studies published in this focused area are quite heterogeneous resulting in lack of comprehensive understanding of different clothing solutions that exist for children with DD. Therefore, this scoping review is undertaken to map clothing …

The Role Of Shopping Orientations And Intrinsic Experiential Value In Consumer's Willingness To Follow Embodied-Ai's Advice In Fashion Shoe Stores, Christina Soyoung Song, Ji Young Lee, Dooyoung Choi

STEMPS Faculty Publications

This study employs a synthesis of Intrinsic Motivation Theory with three shopping orientations, namely “adventure,” “idea,” and “personalized” shopping, in order to examine their potential influence on individuals' motivation towards shopping. We proposed that consumers’ experiential value of intrinsic enjoyment is an indispensable mediator that affects their willingness to follow EAI’s advice. The study offers novel insights into the way that consumers’ characteristics of influencing others’ clothing consumption affect their shopping motivations to find adventure and stimulation, keep up with new fashion trends and products information, and their preference to patronize stores and interact with store staff on a personal …

Will The Scarcity Of Ai-Designed Clothing Influence Consumers To Purchase?, Dooyoung Choi, Ha Kyung Lee

STEMPS Faculty Publications

This study explores how perceived scarcity of AI-designed clothing influences purchase intention, mediated by perceived monetary value. Fashion involvement's moderating role is also examined. Participants (N = 311), sourced from Amazon Mechanical Turk, watched an AI clothing design video, and evaluated a jacket that is designed by AI. Responses on perceived scarcity, monetary value, purchase intentions, and fashion involvement were collected using Likert scales. Analyzing data with SPSS 28.0 and the PROCESS Macro Model 8 with 5,000 bootstrap samples suggested that although the scarcity of an AI-designed clothing alone may not significantly increase purchase intentions, fashion brands can leverage the …

Costuming The Californian Apocalypse: Sartorial Speculations Of Los Angeles's Future, Isabel Kramer

Scripps Senior Theses

With this project, I use fashion design as a medium to visually speculate a range of futures that exist in relation to different temporal apocalypses and dystopian world endings under the current capitalist structure. Three questions guided my thinking and creation of this project: What will people be wearing in 100 years in Los Angeles if we continue down our current path of late capitalism-induced climate change? How will this look differently for people who exist alongside different axes of oppression and who are affected by environmental racisms that manifest in the built environment of Los Angeles? How do dystopian …

Body. Freedom. Choice: Creating Artwork In Post-Roe America, Erin Sedra

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

I knew from a young age that I never wanted children. Whenever I expressed my disinterest in motherhood, I was often met with bewilderment, disapproval, and hostility. The church I was raised in taught me that my value and worth as a woman directly correlated with the power of my birthing hips. This fundamentalist upbringing has significantly shaped my relationship with my femininity, my body, and my artwork. When I feel powerless, turning to my art gives me a sense of control and self-expression. This body of work began as a reaction to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and …

Assessment Of Instrument Exploring Underwear Preferences Of Incontinent Geriatric Women In Assisted Living, Cassandra M. Stewart

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Urinary incontinence is a urologic condition commonly occurring in geriatric individuals and often results in disability. This affects not only physical functioning, but also psychological and emotional implications. Prior research focused on prevention and using smart technology to improve the current products available to help manage urinary incontinence. Little research has been completed to examine the preferences of geriatric individuals and assess what they are looking for in incontinence products. The purpose of the study was to create an instrument to assess the individual preferences of older adults for these products in a community living environment. Research questions included: (1) …

Green Is The New Black: Exploring How A Philosophical Approach To The Fashion Industry Will Reduce Its Environmental Impact, Darion A. Gibbs

Student Theses and Dissertations

The fashion industry is the third largest contributor to pollution globally, behind only oil and agriculture. It also accounts for one-fifth of the plastic produced annually. Despite its impact, it is hard to trace accountability. For example, mega-retailers often outsource production to developing countries, without strong structures of accountability for their environmental impact. In addition, companies often claim to be environmentally sustainable, but it is easy to inflate the truth, and entities designed to protect consumers have limited enforcement. In this context, who should be held responsible for the fashion industry’s contribution to climate change?

In response, this thesis delves …

Marisa Kalil-Barrino Final Project, Marisa G. Kalil-Barrino

Capstones

Around the world, Black and Brown fashion designers are underrepresented in the media and fashion industry. Often, fast fashion companies like Shein, Zara, and H&M imitate or steal designs from Black and Brown designers who handcraft their clothes while factories mass produce them. Marisa Kalil-Barrino created 1202 Magazine, an arts and culture publication highlighting emerging artists, events, and concepts, especially her community, Black and Brown fashion designers.

Situating The Child’S Voice Within Children’S Fashion: An Interdisciplinary Examination Of The Child’S Engagement With The Clothing They Wear, Melinda Byam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper examines the child’s relationship with children’s fashion, the clothing they wear, and their fashion consumption practices. Using a wardrobe approach to fashion, and an understanding of the child as the expert in their own lives, the author questions how the child engages, interacts, and experiences children’s fashion considering that how they use, think, and speak about their clothing is minimally consulted. Situating this research within a theoretical foundation set by Goffman and Simmel (social behavior), Featherstone (consumer culture), and Merleau-Ponty and Entwistle (embodiment), this text examines fashion from the point of view of the child, hypothesizing how future …

The Bridal Industry: Body Image And Sizing Charts, Natalie Knapp

Apparel Merchandising and Product Development Undergraduate Honors Theses

The apparel industry in the United States of America lacks a unified size chart. This inconsistency allows vanity sizing and individual retailers to preside over the systematic regulations of sizing. The bridal industry is the singular industry that is not affected by vanity sizing in the United States, which causes a plethora of issues when coupled with the media’s thin ideal and push of certain body standards.

The project utilized four sections of literature review: regarding sizing inconsistency, mass media and size dysphoria, United States standard of sizing, and brides and weight loss. Additionally, four different size charts from four …

Surfacing: A (Loose) Manual On Unlayering / Stuff-Making And Hypervisibility, Zoë Pulley

Masters Theses

This is a (loose) manual on a method I like to refer to as surfacing.

A method that synthesizes narrative through the use of surfaces such as textiles, paper, web & video to reveal the spectacularly ordinary parts of Black life within a growing design practice.

A method I (currently) practice in three (evolving) steps:

Unlayering and piecing together stuff (rememory)

Acknowledgment of ancestry through stuff-making (kin)

Consciousness of oneself and the place / time / space in which the work is being disseminated (hypervisibility)

This is a manual that profiles a (current) design practice of a Black female maker …