SUBWAY DRESS

Wearables Design (April 2015 - May 2015)
Role: Fabricator, Designer, Maker, Coder
Individual Work for ITP Wearables Class

Project Description

Subway Dress visualizes New York Subway with different colored LED’s. Depending on where the user is at, the GPS attached to the dress will locate the closest subway station and will light up the whole subway line. For example if the user is closest to Classon Av station, which is a G train, the whole G line will light up with green color.

I wanted to make a wearable that was both artistic as well as functional. As I was faced with NYC subway's complication everyday, I decided to install the subway lines on my dress and make it something that people can appreciate regardless of complication.

 

Dress Details

There are two parts of the dress. The outer side shows the embroidery work of New York Subway lines that was done using sewing machine to stitch the silver thread on fabric. The inner lining fabric was used to fix each RGB LEDs using hot glue and stitching technique. A little pocket was made and stitched on at the back of the dress to hold 3.7V battery, Flora Arduino and GPS sensor.

 

Design Process

  1. Muslin was used to make different versions of dress designs.
  2. Embroidery work was done for both front and back of the dress by drawing on station lines then using sewing machine.
  3. Pins were put on the subway map to represent the major subway station.
  4. LED strips were cut and stuck on the dress liner using hot glue.
  5.  All the neopixels, flora and GPS sensor were soldered together.
  6. Tested the Arduino code.
  7. Stitched on the inner lining fabric to the outer fabric.
  8. Stitched on front dress with the back dress.

 

The Result

This dress was showcased in ITP Spring Show 2015. 
Project was featured in the following articles: