Interviews

Traditionally high-tech footwear is designed for the pavement not the runway. Shoe designer Zuzana Serbak breaks away from these traditions by using industrial high tech materials such as carbon fiber and silicone to craft futuristic sandals and voluminous heels.

Upon seeing her graduate collection (Zuzana graduated from Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, Czech Republic this year), I invited Zuzana for an interview to learn more about her process and inspiration.

To learn more about her work, please follow Zuzana’s blog or introduce yourself to Zuzana here on FT.

Why design shoes?

Since my early times I was enjoying arts and design and was interested in different textile techniques and technologies. I based my studies on my interests. At the Academy I’ve just finished I learned to design and make shoes and fall in love with this beautiful industry.

Your graduate line was inspired by “composite materials” such as carbon fibre and silicone. How did you use these materials to construct your line? What drew you to work with these materials in the first place?

I was interested in using high-tech materials not typically used for shoemaking. I was wondering how I can use the character of these materials in behalf of shoes. I was experimenting with different materials and had to select the strongest ideas.

The definition of “composite materials” is about mixing two or more materials with absolutely different character (for example fiber reinforcement and liquid matrix) to get a composite with multiplied features. My experimentations were based on this definition. The idea of mixing different materials interpreted as visual element was also an inspiration for me.

Material research and innovation in shoe design is typically found in the sports footwear and apparel industry not high fashion. What role do you envision high tech materials playing in high fashion?

My aim was to try new materials and influence the construction this way. I think carbon fibre is fabulous for high heels. It’s extremely strong and beautifully lightweight that matches with the subtly of women’s feet.

The material allows one to make an extremely slim heels and bulbous/bulky ones at the same time. In my designs I also combined the shank piece with the heel so it was not necessary to use a common steel shank piece.

[Carbon fiber is} extremely strong and beautifully lightweight that matches with the subtly of women’s feet.

Little innovations like this simplify the production process and minimize the composition of the shoe. I also experimented with leather reinforced resins and leather reinforced silicones. I used a specially developed silicone in different ways, eliminating the reinforcements used for shoes. Again silicone is flexible and soft but firm enough to keep the shape of the shoe (toe, heel seat) and prevent it from deformation through wear.

Your designs look futuristic, organic and whimsical at the same time. What was the inspiration for the variation forms in your collection?

As soon as I discovered what’s possible and what’s not with those materials, I started to concentrate on forms. As I mentioned, carbon fiber and silicone offer a wide scale of shapes, forms. More than a “fashion line” this collection shows the manifoldness of materials I used. From slim to bulky shapes in carbon fiber and from liquid, creamy to crystalline in silicones.

Each shoe is expressive in its own way but together they create a story, a coherent concept.

Which shoe would you say is your favorite and why?

Basically i do not have any favorite. There is an idea in every shoe. Each shoe is expressive in its own way but together they create a story, a coherent concept.

What’s next for you?

I‘m balancing between being employed as a full time designer for a high end company and my dream to run my own brand. At the moment I’m a freelance designer and collaborating with accessories design studios and fashion designers.

a video with the costumers of tron legacy from the hollywood reporter: VIDEO: Behind-the-Scenes with ‘Tron: Legacy’s’ Costume Designers i particularly love the idea of the hud(heads up display) discussed in the video. small fans were needed in the helmet to keep the wearer’s head cool during filming. a photo of it can also be found in the gallery: First Look: Costumes of ‘Tron’ according to the hollywood reporter’s caption on the 13th photo of the gallery: “Prior to Tron: Legacy’s Dec. 17 premiere, Disney will debut a Tron pop-up shop in Los Angeles for a six-week run at Culver City’s Royal-T Cafe beginning Nov. 18. The hot spot will also serve up “Lightcycle salads” and “Identity Disk cakes.” here’s the facebook event info on the exclusive tron pop-up shop opening in culver city: TRON: Legacy Pop-Up Shop Opening as a side-note, there’s still no official word on the iphone or ipad tron cases from pdp. i emailed them back in september. the prototypes were on public display in a few places -particularly during comic-con san diego and during e3 in los angeles. ign: E3 2010: A Tron iPad case hopefully their blog will have something the closer we get to the theatrical release date of december 17th.

Nice interview with Cute Circuit founders Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz by Grazia Magazine. Plus you get a preview of their Twirkle T.

Vin Burnham is an international, award-winning costume and creature designer whose body of work is extensive and downright impressive —including costumes designs for feature films, television, opera, ballet and exhibitions.

She is the talent behind the Batsuit, the Penguin and Catwoman costumes for Batman Returns. She has created creatures for Jim Henson’s Creature Shop in London. She even wrote her own fabulous DIY book “Best Ever Kids Costumes” and has recently launched ‘The Little Costume Shop’, a collection of intricately detailed costume miniatures.

Catwoman/Michelle Pfeiffer – Batman Returns, Warner Bros

With a plethora of impressive projects under her belt, it is no surprise that Vin Burnham is the costumier behind Lady Gaga’s “Living Dress.“

Darcey Bussell with costume miniature from The Little Costume Shop

So what goes on behind the scenes in creating such a magical and technical costume for the stage? I asked Vin Burnham just that and she offered us some insight on what it entails to collaborate with the Haus of Gaga.

: : In your body of work, you have created some magical and fantastical costumes for theater, film and television. How was designing the “Living Dress” for Lady Gaga different from your previous experiences?

Designing this dress was quite a different process to costume design for film, TV and theatre, even for a fantasy costume like this, as it was not for a scripted character. Normally I work with the actress on her character so that the costume helps describe that character and makes her feel right as that character.

Toad/Matt Lucas, Barge Woman/Imelda Staunton – Wind in the Willows. BBC TV

Costumes or clothes are really part of the story telling, every single detail tells you something about that character.

For Lady Gaga it was different because there was no scripted character. It was totally abstract, she wanted fashion – couture, not ‘costume’.

I loved it, because the design was not related to any particular period, although the shape was kind of Victorian with a corset, bustle and train. But this was not only for aesthetics, it was necessary to start with a strong base on which to build the animatronics and find places to house motors and cables, so this was going into the realms of engineering, not usually a costume making requirement!

: : Did you work with an engineer or technician to develop the electro-mechanical aspects of the costume? Could you describe your process and collaboration?

Gaga was very inspired by Hussein Chalayan’s moving dresses and she wanted something that would move too, only on a bigger scale.

Once I knew that, it needed an animatronic solution, and through my contacts in the “mechy’ world (I have worked a lot with ‘creature effects’ such as Aslan the Lion and Jim Henson characters), I was led to the team that mechanised the Hussein Chalayan dresses, animatronic designer Adam Wright.

Our paths had not crossed before, but his reputation was fantastic: it was a great opportunity to collaborate with him on this project. By the time he came on board, the dress was designed, and he was able to suggest ways to animate it and add elements to facilitate that.

We had a very tight schedule, and Adam’s word on whether something would work or not, was final. If it was too heavy to move or there weren’t clear lines for cables, it had to be changed, but the costume and mechanics team dovetailed together remarkably well.

Kate Hartman is an artist and an instructor at ITP who has created fabulous work in wearables and interactive fashion that explore ideas of how we communicate. The interview is by Dave Caputo via the Science Channel.

Most of you might know Hannah Perner-Wilson by her username Plusea. Hannah is a talented young artist and prolific maker whose work in electronic textiles and sensors has been inspirational to the DIY community. I met Hannah at last year’s Maker Faire and was immediately impressed by her clever (not to mention beautiful) designs for novel wearable interfaces in projects like the Joy Slippers and Massage Me. In this past year alone, she has created (and shared) a profuse body of work that ranges from innovative material experiments to complete projects. I recently caught up with Hannah to learn more about the motivations behind her work and what she has planned for the near future. Within the last few years alone you’ve created a prolific body of work that includes both material experiments in soft technologies and completed projects. Can you tell us a little about your process? How do your material experiments inform your larger projects and vice versa? I’ve come to find it part of the process of making, that certain possibilities will arise and inspire absolutely different project ideas than the one I set out to solve. Apart from enjoying the act of making things, I also try to trace my motivations for making the things that I do. I think the main issue that influences all my work is the fact that I’m upset and unsatisfied with current human-computer interaction scenarios, yet fascinated by the power of computation.

Massage Me: a novel wearable interface to play video games

You also meticulously document your work and share it with the DIY community on your own personal site, Instructables and hold workshops internationally. Why is it important for you to teach and share your knowledge with a larger community? Not everything I discover during my material experiments becomes part of a project, yet I would still like to share these little discoveries with whoever might be interested. So I started to turn these things into quick little demonstrative objects, like the tilt and time sensing bracelets or the scroll-wheel hack.

Tilt Sensing Bracelet made from conductive fabric and beads

Instructables is a great platform for publishing such partial solutions. They almost always result in a wonderful stream of feedback in the comments section. Members will comment on their pointlessness, but also point out the problems they see, provide solutions and come up with endless ideas for applications. Through experiencing this reaction, I came to realize that this is also something I would like to address with my work. Not just expressing my own ideas about human-computer interaction, but also encouraging others to explore the possibilities too. So it is not quite by chance that a lot of the demos I create are bizarre scenarios that intentionally lack a useful purpose. They automatically inspire a wide range of ideas, which is where I think the urge to make something starts. Another reason for documenting and sharing my work is that I would like to promote the idea that making, modifying and repairing things can become a viable alternative to the consumption of mass produced human-computer interfaces. With your projects like the Joy Slippers and Massage me you seem to be exploring new innovative ways of using the body as an input device. Do you see the body as an interface? What interests you in exploring the space of the body as a means of controlling electronics? What were some themes/ideas you were exploring with these artworks? Massage me was driven by the want to get a free massage. We also wanted to traget and harvest the video game player and their excess button-pushing energy. Together with Mika Satomi (www.nerding.at), we developed the concept into a wearable jacket that had the controller buttons embedded on the back. This work was driven by the initial idea and the choice to create a wearable technology interface fell purely because we saw it as the best way to getting our free massage. The JoySlippers were inspired by my desire for a hands-free way to interact with my computer. I was also interested in what possibilities lie beyond the initial learning of an interface. What does it mean to be a professional user of a pair of slippers with embedded pressure sensors? So when I made the JoySlippers my initial objective was to wear them regularly and practice. But I got stuck in the loop of improving their design and making them wireless, rather than getting around to wearing them and refining my code for the simple drawing program I started out with. So this is a project and concept I’m still very much interested to pick up again and continue. In my more recent works this clear divide between the initial idea and the process of making is less distinct. I’m having a hard time clarifying this while at the same time exploring so many different new materials and production techniques. One of my works in progress that is bouncing between materiality and concept is a set of position sensing textiles, from which I would like to make a full body suit in order to explore relationships between body parts in terms of touch. This project idea is called “Everywhere I can touch myself” and came from the simple idea to be able to track where a selected body part is touching the rest of the body. Something about the possibility to be able to do this with wearable technology fascinated me and I would really like to develop a good solution. I’m trying not to compromise the initial idea because of what is not possible and also trying not to expand beyond the initial idea because of what is possible. Currently you are a resident at the Distance Lab. Would you care to elaborate on the work and ideas that you are exploring there? Yes, Mika and I are currently both based in the highlands of Scotland. We came here together to continue our collaboration as KOBAKANT. Our first aim has been to document all of the material and technical experiments and experiences we have gathered from working on wearable technology projects over the past three years. This kind of documentation work tends to inspire new ideas, which we are able to follow up on, documenting them as we go for incorporation in possible future projects and workshops. The Distance Lab’s focus on the theme of distance is something we are trying to relate to through a certain perspective on our work. The type of distance we see ourselves addressing in our work is that between manufacturing and consumption. Positioning DIY and the sharing of documentation as a means to bridge the distance between the manufacturer and consumer. Turning it into a relationship of making and customizing, or making and using. Mika and I are also using this opportunity to talk about where we would like to go as KOBAKANT. We are definitely interested in wearable technology, but also very skeptical about most applications we see and even the ones we imagine ourselves. Going back to the motivation behind creating massage me, we would like to inspire our future works by our concerns and concepts that are not inherently wearable or even technological. Aside from the fact that the Distance Lab is a really great place to focus on your work, the lab also has a workshop full of wonderful equipment, that up until now we have never had the opportunity to use for our own purposes. A laser cutter, knitting machine, CNC machine and vacuum former. And for the first time we actually have a sewing machine in our office, plus we recently purchased a proper popper (American: snap fastener) machine that will drastically transform our lives! What’s next for you? Next, this September I will be moving back to the USA to begin my masters at MIT. I’m super excited because the aim of Leah Buechley’s High-Low Tech research group is something I feel very strongly about. And there is so much I want to do. One Last question — what is the story (if any) behing your username Plusea? When in high school math we were taught integration, I was somehow fascinated by the constant (+c) that is put in place of the original displacement which can not be recreated. I picked up the “+c” and turned it into a logo and from there it became the written word “plus c”. And then, because I like the sea, –> “plus sea” –> “plusea”. [The definition on my website] +c stands for the act of trying to bring an object back to its original state and realizing that this is not possible. A placeholder for all that remains unknown and can not be recreated. To keep up with Hannah’s inspiring work, you can follow her on her website Plusea.at or on Instructables. Thanks Hannah! Keep up the great work!