Sorry for the silence, but there were some days of sickness in the house of Lo, but thankfully I am seeing better days.

Back to the main programming: So Yushiro and I got quite a bit of feedback from our presentation of the self-heating jacket, although one idea that came up was, why not incorporate something that actually transforms the clothing, like inflating or something along those lines?  That was actually something we had considered earlier - like, along with self-heating, the act of zipping would inflate a hood to go over your head.

With that and other ideas on the drawing board, it then came to a point: because of the timeline we’ve been working with, we could either figure out circuits and how to actually heat a jacket (and not catch on fire), or work on the inflatable idea in some respect.  Although both are interesting to us, we’ve decided to move forward with the inflatable route for its more visible and spacial possibilities - and, to be honest, to avoid playing with potentials of fire.

The previous post mentioned Michael Webb’s Suitaloon, which was one inspiration.  In researching methods of inflation, I came across this dress by designer Diana Eng, previously of Project Runway.  Conceived of while at RISD, the dress uses a hacked hand vacuum and a series of valves/tubing to inflate or deflate the dress, depending on the the desired silhouette.  Although this is an interesting concept (and one that has clearly awed the runway), I have to say the blatantly visible mechanisms are ungainly and take away from the overall look.  That’s one thing to keep in mind - how to conceal or at least integrate the technology used so the piece acts as one, and not like clothes with a Borg attachment.