The Role of the Hole

Abstract: The design project presented here explores the relation between body and a garment. It is concerned simultaneously with the fundamental notion of a garment and the act of dressing. The project can be contextualized as a constructive design research since the aim does not involve analysis of the material world nor rational problem solving. Rather, the aim is to create new imaginary realities, and visualize them. As a startup method to construct a theory, workshops were set up using life size vertical action collages, in order to integrate the act of dressing with the aim to develop a new construction method. Two actors, one of them myself, were used to provide a greater diversity of perspectives and interpretations. A method of dressing which involved interlocking the body - limbs and waist - with vertically hanging textiles, was developed through the search for the holes, that constitute the infrastructure of a garment. The results are both artefacts, that visualize the new garment construction as well as a new routine of dressing through the novel method of garment construction. Dressing a body in textiles through interlocking which results in an intimate connection between body and the garment as the body reacts to the garment and vice versa. The motivation for exploring the act of dressing is an urge to reflect upon the fast evolving society of today which tends to emphasize a static relationship between body and a garment.