08/07/2025
It’s finally here! ✨🌱 Some months back, the amazing Emma van Gerven MA and yours truly came to a spark of thought while noting the estrangement from the human body of our graduating projects; What is the body if fashion supersedes the human?
“The skin like a garment, once soft leather encasing all human facets sees its definition dimmed with speculated futures reaching for what lays beyond anthropocentric ethe.”
At long last, the spark has sparked and become a full-fledged reflection. In ‘Driving Design Vol. III’ by and , “The Other” discusses future body perspectives on design methods exploring fashion when the body subject of design goes beyond the human. In our works, the body and its identity appear in wildly different variations of post-human perspectives; one where human clothes are designed with bacteria expressing its agency, and another, challenging materiality through the ephemerality of digital technologies.
A core theme of this dialogue was the similarities and differences in the body and its aesthetics when such an anthropocentric discipline as fashion lays out the playing field for the non-human. “The Other” ponders what textures, colours, shapes, the ‘who’ and the ‘what’ distinguish artefact, wearer and designer apart, as the dichotomy between these elements blurs the boundaries separating them.
We are over the moon to be able to share this reflection, which has taken months of blood, sweat and tears - and many a night going back and forth between laughs and serious discussion! 🥹🫶🏻
A huge thank you to the Distributed Design team, and a special shoutout to , for the marvellous job compiling and editing this volume of the Driving Design series!
