If It's Hip, It's Here (Archives)

From Spray Can To Catwalk. Fabrican Spray-On Couture Collection.

You may have seen or read some blog posts and news articles about this futuristic fashion innovation which consists of spray-on clothing. The idea has been in the works for over a decade and the patent for Fabrican was filed in 2000. Starting a few weeks ago, news reports, magazines like Wired, fashion and trend blogs like Trendland and more began covering the concept yet again.

Just last week, the Spring/ Summer 2011 collection of the spray-on couture was showcased at a fashion show at Imperial College London. I've got some of those images for you so now you can really some some wild results of this technological future of fashion.

The show is a culmination of 10 years of work by Dr. Torres, who has collaborated with Professor Paul Luckham, Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemical technology, to create a seamless material called Fabrican Spray-on fabric. The technology enables designers to spray liquid material directly onto the body, using aerosol technology, which dries instantly to make innovative clothes that can be washed and re-worn.

More than 300 key figures from industry, academia, fashion and the media came to the College to see Dr. Manel Torres (shown above with the models in the show's finale), Spanish fashion designer and academic visitor at Imperial, unveil his 2011 Spring/Summer Collection at the Science in Style Fashion Show. The event celebrated design-led technology developed at Imperial.

Behind the scenes, creating the dressed for the show:

So, what is Fabrican?

Fabrican ltd. is the creator of Spray-on Fabric, or couture in a can. A technological innovation that will not only lighten your vacation packing, but can also be used in medical, automotive and other numerous applications.

Fabrican Spray-on © Fabrican Ltd 2007, Photographer Gene Kiegel.

Some history for you:
In 2000 Fabrican patented an instant, sprayable, non-woven fabric. Developed through a collaboration between Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art, Fabrican technology has captured the imagination of designers, industry and the public around the world.

The technology has been developed for use in household, industrial, personal and healthcare, decorative and fashion applications using aerosol cans or spray-guns, and will soon be found in products available everywhere.

© Imperial College London / Layton Thompson. Fabrican Ltd 2010.

In the late 1990's, Manel Torres conceived the idea for Spray-on Fabric while studying for his MA in Fashion Women's Wear, Royal College of Art, London. Aware of the slow process of constructing garments, Manel investigated novel ways to speed up this process. Manel's foresight and vision led him to think of developing a material that would almost magically fit the body like a second skin and at the same time have the appearance of clothing. The original concept was to utilize Spray-on Fabric in the fashion industry. However, the technology has the potential to revolutionize and enhance numerous market areas.

One example would be the "Nicotine chair"shown below. Given developments in the pharma/biotech industry, and the flexible adhesive properties of Fabrican's technology, slow release systems like that of nicotine can be absorbed by sitting on a chair sprayed with Fabrican.

© Fabrican Ltd 2007, Photographer Fabrican Ltd
above: Nicotine Chair "Sit down and quit smoking"

Manel Torres obtained his PhD at the Royal College of Art and then in 2000, filed a patent for the Spray-On Fabric technology. During his PhD research, his work was supervised by Dr Susannah Handley (Royal College of Art) and Professor Paul Luckham (Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London). Fabrican is focused on the research and development of Spray-on Fabric which can then be used across a number of market sectors; medical, automotive and fashion. Fabrican's mission is to develop prototype products, in collaboration with leading industrial partners, leading to commercial exploits and applications.

© Imperial College London / Layton Thompson. Fabrican Ldt 2010. above: The fabric is formed by the cross-linking of fibers, which adhere to one another, to create an instant non-woven fabric that can be easily sprayed on to any surface. Its properties can be tailored to meet the needs of each user.

© Fabrican Ltd 2010 above: A multitude of fabrics of varied colors, textures, and properties, all sprayable from an aerosol can.

Science and fashion in collaboration, Fabrican spray-on fabric will liberate designers to create new and unique garments, offer a carrier technology for delivery of fragrance or even medical active substances, and allow the wearer to personalize their wardrobe in infinite combinations. New textures and material characteristics are a matter of adjusting chemistry. In addition to fashion, the technology is opening new vistas, offering sprayable material for any application requiring a fabric coating. The technology opens new vistas for personalized fashion, allowing individual touches to be added to manufactured garments, or even impromptu alterations. Garments could incorporate fragrances, active substances, or conductive materials to interface with information technology. After a decade of research, this futuristic vision is taking shape.

Fabrican is a rare achievement in transforming a dream to practical realisation. Through combination of clever exploitation of people’s immediate fascination with the spray-on fabric, and Manel’s extraordinary ability to motivate multi-disciplinary collaboration, Fabrican has brought interest and worldwide media coverage.

images, videos and information courtesy of Fabrican, Ltd. and the Imperial College of London

Sukkah City: 12 Radically Re-Imagined Traditional Jewish Shelters For Sukkot.

above: a modern sukkah, Fractured Bubble, by Henry Grosman and Babak Bryan was "Fan favorite"

Thanks to Ren and her wonderful blog, Lady of The Arts, I have learned about 'Sukkah City', an international design competition which took place last week in New York to re-imagine Sukkahs, the temporary shelters or dwellings built during the week-long traditional Jewish Festival Of Sukkot to commemorate the homelessness that occurred during their 40 years of wandering in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt.

It's not easy to describe a Sukkah, so I'll let this video by Liz Nord do it for you:

Traditional sukkahs:

624 people from 43 countries entered the competition. The 12 temporary structures that were chosen as the winning designs by a very impressive jury (listed later in this post) were constructed in Union Square Park’s South Plaza and were displayed publicly on September 19th and 20th (one of them, P.YGROS.C, collapsed immediately after construction). Here are the 12 winning concepts.

Gathering by Dale Suttle, So Sugita, Ginna Nguyen:

LOG by Kyle May and Scott Abrahams:

Blo Puff by Bittertang:

P.YGROS.C / passive hygroscopic curls by THEVERYMANY / Marc Fornes with Jared Laucks:

In Tension by SO-IL:

Sukkah of the Signs by Ronald Rael, Virginia San Fratello:

Star Cocoon by Volkan Alkanoglu:

Single Thread by Matter Practice:

Shim Sukkah by tinder, tinker:

Repetition meets Difference | Stability meets Volatileness by Matthias Karc:

Time/Timeless by Peter Sagar:

Fractured Bubble by Henry Grosman and Babak Bryan:

See all of the impressive entrants from 43 countries here.

Reality Disappoints?
While the concept of Sukkah City is fresh and exciting, some of the more common criticisms of the event were that the discrepancy between the impressive renderings and actual built structures were fairly great-- the completed buildings were disappointing when compared with the imagined concepts.

The Gathering Sukkah as imagined and as realized:

"Log" was one of the few designs that remained faithful to the original rendering:

The blog Human's Scribbles has great good side-by-side comparisons of the renderings with the completed structures.

The two day display culminated with Mayor Bloomberg announcing “Fractured Bubble,” a design created by Henry Grosman and Babak Bryan of Long Island City, Queens, as the “People’s Choice” winner:

The following photos from the event are courtesy of Benjamin Norman for the New York Times, who published this article on the event:

above: a panoramic view of the event

above: peeking inside the Shim Sukkah

above: the Blo Puff sukkah, a far cry from the original rendering

The process and results of the competition, along with construction documentation and critical essays, will be published in the forthcoming book "Sukkah City: Radically Temporary Architecture for the Next Three Thousand Years."

The jury consisted of these impressive designers, illustrators, architects and writers:
* Michael Arad
* Ron Arad
* Rick Bell
* Allan Chochinov
* Matias Corea
* Paul Goldberger
* Steven Heller
* Natalie Jeremijenko
* Maira Kalman
* Geoff Manaugh
* Thom Mayne
* Thomas de Monchaux
* Ada Tolla
* Adam Yarinsky

Next year, Sukkah City will expand from New York City to cities all around the world. If your community would like to be part of Sukkah City 2011, please contact them at sukkahcity@gmail.com.

To learn who was behind this, the sponsors and more, visit Sukkah City.

Threadless: A Crowd Sourced Success Story. And A Look Inside The New Book.

If you're anywhere near Brooklyn today, you should stop by the the launch party for the new book about the history of Threadless. (info at the end of this post).

Threadless, in case you are one of the three people on the planet who has never heard of them, officially began in 2000 as an online user-generated design, crowd-sourced, voting-produced, limited edition T-shirt company.

They have since grown into an enormous online and offline success featuring some of the most interesting and hilarious t-shirts around --with user uploaded designs that are voted into limited production by registered users. The online store spawned a Chicago brick and mortar store, an art print store and a cultural phenomenon inspiring cake baking contests, collaborations with Dell computers and more.

above: the Chicago store interior, photo courtesy of motherboard.tv

I've actually been a registered user since 2003 and own over 40 of their t-shirts. Below is a photo of me wearing one of my favorites (forgive me, my vegan friends):

The Book

Started by Jacob DeHart (no longer with the company) and Jake Nickell, who met in an online design forum when they were still in college, this story of how an internet T-Shirt company has led to livin' the dream has just been published in book form to be released October 10th.

A few spreads from the 200+ page book which contains over 300 images:

About the book (courtesy of Abrams)
Threadless.com is the phenomenally successful T-shirt company with more than 4 million tees sold since it began in 2000. It pioneered the online business model of crowd-sourced or community-driven design, in which people submit designs that are voted on by the site’s 1 million users and printed. Over the past 10 years, the company has amassed a vast archive of very cool, very hip, and often very entertaining designs, and Threadless is a spectacular showcase of 400 of the very best T-shirts created by the community—a barometer of art and design over the past decade.

Much more than a book of extraordinary graphics, Threadless tells the extremely interesting story that inspired Inc. magazine to hail Threadless.com as “the most innovative small company in America.” There are also profiles of individual designers and “think pieces” from influential admirers, including design guru John Maeda, Jeff Howe of Wired, and bestselling business/marketing writer Seth Godin.

Author Jake Nickell

Jake Nickell, above, is co-founder of Threadless.com and lives in Boulder, Colorado.
(photo courtesy of motherboard.tv)

Buy Threadless: Ten Years of T-shirts from the World's Most Inspiring Online Design Community
Threadless Book Launch Party Today In Brooklyn!
Threadless and Abrams are launching the Threadless Book at the epic Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn today. Threadless Founder Jake Nickell plus a handful of awesome featured Threadless artists will be on hand signing copies and undoubtedly, causing as much trouble as possible.

As an added bonus, their pals from the Etsy Labs will be there for an afternoon of making hands-on recycled t-shirt projects as part of a special edition of Craft Night. You can try your hand at reconstructing and repurposing t-shirts into necklaces, skirts, totebags, and more.The fun starts at 2pm.

If you're already planning to check out the DuMBO Arts Fest, be sure to pop in and say hello. Tasty drinks will be graciously provided by AriZona Beverages.

Powerhouse Arena
Sunday, September 26, 2010 from 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM (ET)
37 Main St.
Brooklyn, NY 11201