Tiffany has a great post on the state of the art in diy shoes from scrap tires, including a link to this pattern for cutting sandals from a slab of reused rubber (above) and this link to purchase up-cycled Cambodian tire sandals from the Old Ho Rubber Sandal Company: To replace your Old Ho’s straps […]
Category Archives: fashion
digital sweat
I recently watched Stephanie Rothenberg speak about her project doublehappinessjeans, a Second Life sweatshop that produces designer denim by the underpaid labor of virtual avatars; producing the goods in both physical and digital form. The idea makes an intriguing point about the ideal of Personal Fabrication: that one day manufacturing of complex products will be […]
Also posted in fabrication, futurecraft, marketing, possessed products, product design, soft/glowing
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monolithic shoes
I couldn’t resist these Puma Injex shoes injection molded in one piece from non-PVC (presumably Polyurethane) foam rubber: they’re light and cushy and they appear to waste less material than typical shoes. In reality these are just attractive crocs, and they made me wonder whether they represent any benefit over traditional sneakers. They weigh about […]
Also posted in energy, fabrication, product design, soft/glowing
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being wrong
Patagonia’s Footprint Chronicles is a remarkable feat for a fashion company: a visualization of their products’ global supply chains on a map, along with videos of each step in the manufacturing process, and descriptions of each item in terms of distance traveled, CO2 emissions, waste generated and energy consumption. Not only is it impressive that […]
Also posted in blogogracy, fabrication, free & open, futurecraft, marketing, materials, open objects, product design, supply chain, traceability, visualization
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under the catwalk
I received this slide show purporting to document labor conditions in an Indian shoe manufacturer for a brand called Catwalk – although it’s hard for me to confirm any of this information. If you know about it, let me know, otherwise these are still pictures of people at work producing remarkably polished products in slave-like […]
Also posted in fabrication, possessed products, supply chain
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soft car
Now that buildings have been wrapped in soft materials for years, BMW is proposing that cars could replace their bulky bodies with stretchy fabric – with a lot of elegant consequences for those pesky door lines, headlights – not to mention the entire vehicle could now act as an airbag.
Also posted in fabrication, livingbreathing, materials, soft/glowing
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open threads 3
Burdastyle is an open-source sewing resource where members upload patterns and visitors can consult instructional references (below) or download pdf patterns (above). By providing instructions for how to sew at the same time as open source ‘code’ for what to sew the site is a real open source free fashion resource. As with free software, […]
Also posted in blogogracy, customization, fabrication, free & open, futurecraft, materials, open objects, product design, soft/glowing, universal design
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open threads 2
The concept of making source code Open Source typically refers to opaque products whose construction cannot be discerned from their appearance – but even seemingly transparent products, such as buildings or clothes, hide a code of their own. The project Hacking Couture seeks out the hidden aesthetic code and its history in order to liberate […]
Also posted in customization, fabrication, free & open, futurecraft, open objects, product design, soft/glowing, upcycling
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