How To Get What You Want: KOBA etextiles tailorshop

January 16, 2018 in collaboration, commission, eTextiles, fashion, sustainability, tech, wearables

Hannah Perner-Wilson and Mika Satomi are best known for their epic explorations in DIY etextiles and documentation on www.kobakant.at. Anyone working with etextiles will be familiar with the incredible resource How To Get What You Want.

Their latest project KOBA takes this work one step further and offers an open studio and shop front allowing the public to walk in and commission whatever wearable electronic garment they can dream up! If you are in Berlin, I recommend you pay them a visit.

I started 2018 in style, spending an inspiring week in the KOBA Schneiderei in Kreuzberg. Working alongside Hannah and Mika I drafted the block for my unisex modular jumpsuit collection (more on that later) as well as giving a talk about 'how do we know what we want? making fantasies come true' at their first #Shoptalk event. We collaborated on a prototype jumpsuit (for ..me!) and you can follow the design and evolving documentation here. In the belt are vibration motors which tell me north when activated - by jumping, of course. It also wakes me up by 'purring' if I have been stationary for too long. Watch the video below or check out their blog post to learn more.

You can follow the evolution of the tailorshop and ongoing documentation on the KOBA website. If you want to be inspired and lose yourself in a web of inspiration, I encourage you to follow the multitude of links in this post and explore their work. You won't regret it.

I will be going back to KOBA in March (after we have recovered from fashion week) with my partner in crime Bex to see what wonders have been dreamt up since this visit.. and to make custom jumpsuits for Hannah and Mika.

Anyone familiar with my clothing obsessions will know: jumpsuits are the way of the future. This allusory jumpsuit pattern (and the whole collection) will be open sourced and uploaded as soon as we have: made the different style samples, rubbed our beards thoughtfully, hated them, decided we love them, shot them beautifully, presented them officially and finally, refined the patterns and uploaded the content. No biggie. You can have the patterns for free and will also be able to order them from us. The future will be sexy and utilitarian and have options. We have one month to complete this mission. Watch this space.

mi.mu gloves in Barcelona at Sonar+D

May 22, 2016 in mi.mu gloves, tech, performance, wearables, music

Last week team mi.mu gloves visited Barcelona to present the gloves at Sonar+D. Chagall performed a full live set of her Stray Flux EP using only her gloves to manipulate her voice and sound and to trigger and loop samples and effects. Everything you hear is performed live. You can watch the recording of the livestream here at La Vanguardia's facebook page

Mi.mu gloves are a wireless wearable technology which allow you to create, manipulate, record and play music using only your hands, changing the dynamic of electronic music from a physically introverted interaction with a computer to one which is more dynamically and expressively connected to the audience. It restores traditional elements of performance to modern electronica, fusing the future of music with essential elements that have made live performance a physically and emotionally engaged art form throughout history. Using a small portable router connected to a laptop running our Glover software and any program which reads MIDI or OSC, you can map any sound to any gesture or posture and manipulate it in real time in a 3D space. Mi.mu stands for 'me'/'my'/'midi' and 'music'. Mi.mu gloves are a completely programmable wearable gestural interface which give the user almost unlimited possibilities as to how they can map their own 3D space to create music through gesture and movement. They are currently made and released in limited runs from our London HQ above Rachel Freire Studio and we are steadily building an international user base as we develop the technology, exploring and mapping this exciting language of gesture.

Chagall's performance also debuted her new interactive visuals, controlled by the gloves. The code was written by mi.mu's Glover author Adam Stark and art directed by the brilliant Eduardo Fitch. All Chagall's clothes for the live show and in the projections are by mi.mu textile designer Rachel Freire. The team had an amazing time sharing our work, both live at the venue and the 60k and counting viewers of the livestream video. Huge thanks to Sonar+D for brilliant documentation and tech support and a really great show. Learn more about mi.mu gloves here.

L-R Rachel Freire, Adam Stark, Chagall Van Den Berg, Eduardo FitchFrom sold out popstar arena tours to TED talks at CERN, exploring their potential to make music more accessible to those with disabilities, encouraging hackers to break down barriers … — L-R Rachel Freire, Adam Stark, Chagall Van Den Berg, Eduardo Fitch
From sold out popstar arena tours to TED talks at CERN, exploring their potential to make music more accessible to those with disabilities, encouraging hackers to break down barriers in modern technology and developing the gloves for market in an ethical, affordable and transparent way, mi.mu gloves are an infinitely fascinating project we want to share with as many people as possible. This summer we will be announcing a residency for those who want to get their hands in a pair of gloves and add to our growing community of users, makers and hackers.
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Nirvana: Les Etranges Formes du Plaisir

December 04, 2014 in fashion

Two jumpsuits from AW10 collection 'future noir' are currently on display at MUDAC design museum in Lausanne, Switzerland in the exhibition Nirvana: Les Etranges Formes du Plaisir. Displayed alongside a host of amazing artists, photographers and designers, the jumpsuits will tour with the exhibition for the next 12 months.

Nirvana is the first comprehensive exploration of the influence of erotica in design, fashion and contemporary art. By turns cheeky, luxurious and mysterious, the exhibition presents the work of around one hundred contemporary creators who make use of an iconography connected with sensual pleasure, drawing inspiration from erotic and fetishist literature, and from the images, objects and garments to which they frequently refer. Visitors will discover objects of superior workmanship, many of them rare and inaccessible, made from materials associated with the world of luxury goods and craftsmanship.

The exhibition forces us to re-examine our own ideas and perceptions of pleasure, and shows how forms can be transmuted from the private to the public sphere. MUDAC