01.24.2002
Today we went and looked for fabrics. By accident we stepped into a fishing shop, they had very interesting things like colorful fish bait and fishing string. The baits looked like toys but not as cute. They were a good inspiration like a crossover of toys and pseudo-nature. We bought some brown feathers, that are usually used to produce fish bait. We like the feathers as a material for our rain wearable,but we are still not sure how to integrate them without making it to unpractical.
After the fishing-shop we went to a japanese shop to look for some inspiring magzines like cutie or fruits. Fruit magazine has been documenting the japanses streets style for years. Cutie is another japanese teens magazine that we find inspiring for kids fashion.
29.01.2002
At the fabric section in the department store they had a big sale, everything was cheap but chaotic. Going through big piles of fabric we found some nice waterproof fabrics. Some of the textiles are like classic rain fabrics out of plasic others are more modern out of nylon or others synthetic material. We also tried to find goretec which is new textile mostly used for sports clothing. The fabrics we got vary from transparent to opaque. We are also thinking of laying the fabric, which could be nice with half transparent or transparent materials.
07.02.02
This week we concentrated on the form of our rain jacket as well as did more on-line research into what technology can be used to facilitate a change in form, color, and sound. We also created several sewn fabric based prototypes to learn more about the texture of the jacket. The jacket also has arms (before it was a poncho) that will control the dimming of lights that are on the border of the sleeves of the jacket. This will be controlled using a potentiometer and calculating the angle of the arms in relation to the body.
14.02.02
After working out our first full-size prototype using Franziska as the model we felt the fit of the jacket was too large so we took in the arms which helped make it feel less baggy. We went through 5 different kinds of fabric for the jacket as well as a trip to Ikea to try shower curtain as an outer shell but finally decided on a red-checker pattern with a semi-rubber red outer. We have also built a smaller prototype integrating a bend sensor which is a lot easier than the original idea of using a rotation potentiometer. On to preparing for the presentation.