Future Fashion: Digital Fashion Design in Scotland and China

Written by Susie Buchan

How is digital design impacting fashion, and what can fashion learn from both the natural world and meetings between different cultures? This project brought together artists and cultural practitioners from Scotland and China to explore these questions. Drawing inspiration from historical and contemporary fashions in their own countries as well as internationally, in addition to mushrooms, natural materials, and generative animation, the conversations and digital collaborations on these topics informed a pair of digital fashion prototypes.

Digital fashion is an area of emerging importance, especially due to the development of online social spaces, as well as the impact of the COVID-19 lockdowns and broader ecological concerns about the impact of “fast fashion.” Digital fashion design can allow companies to present their work in innovative and engaging ways, especially when in-person runway shows are not possible. It can encourage self-expression and experimentation in digital contexts, creating additional features and content for online platforms and replacing some reliance on wasteful “fast fashion.” Also, it can allow designers to prototype new ideas and explore designs that were previously physically impossible, but may be possible through the use of 3D printing, e-textiles, and similar innovations.

Susie Buchan, a Dundee-based creative producer who has organized festivals, exhibitions and events for NEoN Digital Arts Festival, Play UK and Abertay University led on administrative and organizational tasks, ensuring the technological channels for the collaboration were available and assisting with scheduling, invoicing and meetings. 

Emilie Reed, a Glasgow-based curator and researcher who specializes in gaming technologies, new media art and creative communities, and led on the proposal development and documentation of the project. Her website is https://emreed.net/.

Miya Shen (China), represents a new generation of artists working with 3D graphics and technologies, with a strong focus on the development of new sustainable digital fabric and virtual fashion clothing, and intends to build connections between the Scottish and Chinese fashion styles. She was the Chinese artist Biome collective chose to work with. Her work can be found on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/feverkid.

Miya’s specialization in fashion offered something that no Biome members had experience with, and the opportunity for skill sharing and cross-cultural perspectives in general drove our motivation to propose the project.

Part 1: Brainstorming

After the proposal for the collaboration was accepted, we developed a schedule of meetings where Tom and Miya would brainstorm, share their progress, and exchange skills and influences. The ultimate goal was to develop a 3D prototype of a fashion item that met the goals of the project: to represent cultural connections, the influence of digital design on fashion, and the sustainability and communication benefits of digital fashion.

It was important to schedule these meetings at times that were compatible for both artists due to a large difference in time zones, and it was also important to conduct them via platforms that were accessible in both the UK and China. Even then, there could be struggles with connection quality. While this was frustrating, the sometimes limited windows where the artists could communicate encouraged them to make sure that they were well-prepared and fit the most interesting and productive discussions into these times. 

The primary platforms we ended up using for collaboration were Zoom for video and audio calling, and Miro for adding text, image and video documentation to one central area all members of the project could access and edit. Miro, with its ability to handle many forms of media and update in real time proved especially useful for sharing work in progress and finding images to illustrate the ideas or influences going into the work. 

The first meeting involved exploring each other’s previous work, and also sharing perspectives on both traditional and contemporary fashions. Conversations emerged about the significance of colors, patterns, materials and design across cultures, and how Chinese meanings in these areas can strongly differ from Western ones, such as how the color red is associated with luck and energy, and therefore used in wedding dresses in China, while in the UK, as well as many other Western countries, wedding dresses are almost always white, due to their association with purity. 

The conversation turned to how fashion changes over time, and how this is primarily influenced by technologies or tools and available materials. Drawing on historical garments, the artists also considered how a period with digital technology would impact past fashion designs and manufacturing from a future perspective. Digital design allows animation and generative effects that are not standard in traditional fashion production pipelines. An animation of a digitally-designed pair of boots walking with procedurally generated effects inspired the idea of making shoes representing each culture walking towards each other. Keeping the prototype to an accessory design, like a pair of shoes, rather than an entire outfit, also helped to make the scope of the project appropriate to the time we had.

During some additional brainstorming, Tom contributed an icon design to represent the inspiration and goals of the project, combining the Chinese phrase fu, meaning clothing, with the letter Z, referring to Generation Z. Miya also added a translation of a poem - Luoshenfu written by Cao Zhi (192-232 CE) about the fashions and the utmost beauty of Luo Shen, the "Goddess of the River Luo”:

Wrapped in the soft rustle of a silken garments,

She decks herself with flowery earrings of jasper and jade,

Gold and kingfisher hairpins adorning her head,

Strings of bright pearls to make her body shine.

She treads in figured slippers fashioned for distant wandering,

Airy trains of mistlike gauze in tow.

The line “airy trains of mistlike gauze in tow” was especially evocative of patterns of movement and growth formations in nature, as well as the flows of digital information that allow distanced collaboration and technological art. 

Between the first and second brainstorming conversations Miya and Tom looked into traditional shoe designs from each of their own cultures. Miya was inspired by the boot-like Emperor’s Shoes, as well as the Lotus Foot shoes that had traditionally been used for foot-binding, seeing it as an opportunity to redesign a form that is connected to culture but liberating rather than painful. While Tom did not find traditional British shoes like Oxfords and Brogues that inspiring, their ancient predecessors from the highlands, Pampooties, as well as Ghillie boots for highland dancing, offered the basis for his own design. In both cases, locally made and natural materials, the fur, wool and deerskin in traditional Pampooties and the embroidery and silk that went into the Lotus Foot shoes became strong influences on the direction of the project, despite the products being digital.

Contemporary shoe design and production methods also had a strong influence on brainstorming at this point. Miya and Tom were particularly inspired by work from the Berlin-based studio Trippen, which makes heavy use of 3D printing, digital modelling and sustainable materials in their design process. Additionally, the theoretical capabilities of “smart” internet-enabled objects led them to think about how this technology could be applied to accessories like shoes.

To foster an open and organic exchange between Scottish and Chinese design traditions and convey the goals of the project, Miya and Tom also aimed to represent the productive brainstorming conversations they had within the object directly. To incorporate how systematic natural structures like crystals or plants can be procedurally animated, they decided to depict the “smart” features of the shoes as if they worked like fungal networks, leaving paths and sending messages. Working with this concept, they would retain the connection to traditional cultural designs while using the futuristic capabilities of digital art. 

Part 2: Production

After the brainstorming sessions, production of the models began, with meetings to share progress, offer feedback, and exchange perspectives on the tools and processes involved in making the models. The goal was to design two 3D prototype pairs of shoes that would have an animation or other feature that demonstrated their ability to communicate, representing how the programme facilitated cultural connections through similarities and differences, and presenting this work digitally to take advantage of the distanced collaboration. The models would also refer to the cultural and technological themes discussed during the brainstorming.

Tom primarily used Affinity Designer (vector graphics editor) for mock-ups, Maya (3D graphics editor) for modeling and lighting the model, and the game design software Unity for developing and applying the growth and particle effects that would make up the animation. Miya also used her skills in Maya to make her model and test the animated walking shoes. With Houdini (a fully procedural software for creating dynamic simulations) added into her workflow, she was able to test some growing effects and develop the generative elements of the design.

Sharing their progress using these tools was a great opportunity to learn how to use new software and techniques from each other, but the most important technology was the Miro board space, which allowed them to share their inspiration and progress in an explorable and easy-to-communicate way. After the initial brainstorming session, Miya developed a model in Maya and used Substance Painter (a 3D editor specialized to paint materials) to make the textures. Tom did further experiments and iterations on his design in Unity after further conversation, and then they met again to decide the last few requirements for the prototypes. In the future, given more time to develop the project, Tom and Miya also created storyboard sketches to convey what a finalized model and associated animation would look like. The animation would use additional generative effects to illustrate how the shoes connect to the themes of natural materials and communication via digital design and smart-enabled objects.

Part 3: Final Model

Miya named her shoe design Lotus Shoes, for she hopes the word Lotus will no longer be connected to shoes that bind women’s feet like it was in Ancient China. Instead, Lotus could become a symbol to protect them from any harm. Miya chose the colour red to represent bravery, energy and liberation. It also happens to be her favourite colour. Miya also embedded one sentence from the poem Luoshenfu on the back of the shoes to make her wishes: She treads in figured slippers fashioned for distant wandering, airy trains of mist-like gauze in tow (Cao Zhi, 192-232CE).

Tom’s shoe design draws heavily from the Pampooties, a Scottish Highland traditional shoe he discovered during his research of shoe design and local materials. The design uses light and procedural design to capture the look of the original shoes while also tying them into contemporary and digital design styles. It also connects to the theme of the collaboration through the inclusion of the glowing organic matter bubbles on the shoes. Similar to the concept of fungal networks, these shoes could release digital “spores” to interact with and react to someone wearing similarly-enabled digital shoe designs, like Miya’s. It retains the connection to traditional designs while looking new and futuristic, and expresses the theme of the collaboration, enabling unique communication across cultures.

Reflections

After this, Tom and Miya reflected on the digital collaboration process, the design outcomes, and possibilities for extending the project into the future. They agreed that the way the project pushed them to learn more about the history and culture around fashion design from their own countries and each other’s, especially relating historical and contemporary shoe designs, was one of the coolest aspects, and they were satisfied to get to the point of the prototype models having a walking animation. 

What was most difficult about the project was often technical issues working across time zones with varying quality from one’s own personal wi-fi connection. If the project continues, it may be worth using some of the funding to safely travel and work together, since these problems may get more challenging with a longer or more complex project. However, despite these challenges the collaboration was overall very productive, with a lot of new ideas and skills shared. 

The new ideas that emerged as a result of the collaboration informed the end product, but also will go on to inform Tom and Miya’s further work in design and animation. The project offered a unique opportunity to expand their skills and knowledge within digital fashion design specifically, and allowed them to bring new ideas into this space from a variety of cultural influences. The theme of the project also required them to think about the role of sustainability, communication, and natural materials in their work. By sharing tools, influences, and design ideas with each other they also developed alternative understandings of the design process, how particular programs or techniques could complement each other, for example, which gave the collaboration a refreshing level of adaptability. 

Tom and Miya also both noted that this project would have an impact on their artistic practice. For Miya, it offered her experience with the construction and styling of various types of shoes to inform her fashion related work, as well as offering new tools for her workflow, especially using communication tools like Miro to combine a variety of perspectives into a single project. Tom also learned a lot to support his own interest in cool shoes, and it allowed him to explore fashion using his existing skills in modeling and design. He also felt he became more aware of the many processes and cultural influences that go into fashion in general, and learned about new tools from Miya, like Houdini. Both artists also enjoyed the opportunity to work with conceptual fashion, the practice of making possibly unrealistic designs not meant to be worn, but to share ideas and provide inspiration about clothing and how it communicates.

The storyboard sketches point to the great potential for this initial collaboration to be built on through subsequent funding, either through other connections in Biome’s network or subsequent Connections Through Culture alumni grants. Developing the connections to the natural fungus shapes and concept of cultural communication and the human connection to fashion could lead to final refinements of the current design and the development of additional ones, as well as a final animation which expresses the idea behind the shoes in an visually attractive and artistic way.