PREFAB
Scribble by Megan Galbraith
Finger Dress by XS Labs
After a related post which included a reference to the Finger Dresses by XS Labs, I was reminded of another older project that I’ve always admired. The Scribble skirt by Megan Galbraith utilizes a large format inkjet printer to automatically print garment and textile patterns on cotton fabric on the fly. The entire process is enabled through a software program Galbraith wrote allowing for up to 15 designs to be generated and queued for printing.
The project looks like a fairly quick one, but Megan has some interesting things to say on the implications of the process used to create her garments:
I realized that this technique creates a dual commentary on the fabrication of fashion garments. It not only contrasts the careful constructed dressmaker’s clothes due to its speed and simplicity, but it contrasts the generic clothing we yank off the racks of any local chain store because of the wearer’s involvement in generating the design of the fabric. The design process behind the construction of ready-to-wear clothing is completely isolated from the customer. But does it need to be?
Easily overlooked by some flashier garments that flirt with fashion and technology, the Scribble skirt is actually on to something which could at some point wind up as a commercial product and service, while at the same time tapping into some of the swift currents surrounding production, value, and meaning in a mass consumer age. There is a nice historical progression, as she points out in the text accompanying the project between the way in which women in the early to mid-1900s had their garments carefully tailored, to the dizzying avalanche of today’s ready-to wear, and the fusion of automated yet “personalized” control provided by Scribble.
Like Scribble, the pattern and decorative elements for the Finger Dresses were also printed directly onto the fabric. With the technology positioned as a conduit of “quick personal fabrication” the Finger Dresses hint at the same procedural revolution which is fully embraced by Galbraith’s creation, but ultimately for me the connection between “memory” enhanced garments and the process of printing out both the decorative and pattern elements of a garment, aside from the personalization angle, is less clear.