The Final Frontier of Fashion: Interdisciplinary approaches to design for microgravity

Abstract

Interdisciplinary projects for the commercial space age are dominated by collaborations involving engineers and technologists, with a goal to advance digital or mechanical technology. In the emerging field of spacewear design, collaborations with technologists have inevitably led to a focus on wearable technology. There are missed opportunities to explore how designed objects, including clothes, behave in microgravity. This research recognises that not all engagement with space travel is, or should be, high-tech. The condition of weightlessness forces fashion designers to revisit many of the assumptions that have long been fundamental to fashion design, in particular those related to the weight and drape of fabric, and the prioritisation of the silhouette. In order to develop a new field of spacewear design, an understanding of the effects of weightlessness must be sought through collaboration with physics and those with first-hand experience of weightlessness. This article introduces the need for such collaboration, and argues that these collaborations must differ in nature from previous art-science collaborations.