A very serious photo of one of the headpiece’s last tests, just before sewing the lining and topstitching. If you manage to ignore my face, you can see that the chest part has changed. In the final version it closes right under the armpits with pressure buttons, so the headpiece stays on firmly.

A very serious photo of one of the headpiece’s last tests, just before sewing the lining and topstitching. If you manage to ignore my face, you can see that the chest part has changed. In the final version it closes right under the armpits with pressure buttons, so the headpiece stays on firmly.

The very fist muslin prototype. You can see here that I was going for design n.1, with no darts on the side panel.

The aluminum strips were an interesting thing. You see, this part of the head and neck is quite tricky to measure, so at first I used these strips (that are actually construction material) in order to understand, isolate and measure some shapes from my own neck, head and shoulders. These measurements were my base for the designs and helped me a lot when building the first patterns.

In the beginning I was thinking of including these strips in the final design to give a some structure, but I ended up discarding this idea in favour of boning, which is much easier to work with (and less dangerous!).

The final designs that made it through the final cut - I had SO MANY drawings in my sketchbooks! These three designs were the ones I actually attempted building. The last one, with the horizontal strips, looks so good, but it was a bit beyond my capabilities as a pattern-maker. It was a risky design, and I didn’t want to try to do something much more difficult than necessary, especially when working with a full-on leather garment for the first time. Anyway, the first design was the one I experimented with first, but the side on either sides had some creases I really didn’t like. In the end, for the final headpiece, I used the second design, which has some darts in the sides in order to prevent creasing.

The final designs that made it through the final cut - I had SO MANY drawings in my sketchbooks!

These three designs were the ones I actually attempted building. The last one, with the horizontal strips, looks so good, but it was a bit beyond my capabilities as a pattern-maker. It was a risky design, and I didn’t want to try to do something much more difficult than necessary, especially when working with a full-on leather garment for the first time.

Anyway, the first design was the one I experimented with first, but the side on either sides had some creases I really didn’t like. In the end, for the final headpiece, I used the second design, which has some darts in the sides in order to prevent creasing.

More process documentation from the headpiece.

I initially moulded these aluminum wires (bought at the Baumarkt, they’re intended for some type of construction… or something) to the head dummy I have at home. The muslin prototype was built on top of this structure.

On speculation

So… now this project we just finished changed things a bit in my head.

Not really REALLY changed; maybe it just made things that were still very vague and blurry a bit clearer. The thing is that working with wearables is something very applicable NOW. It’s straightforward technology that is already beginning to carve its own space in daily life - and it’s gaining momentum quite quickly.

HOWEVER

Speculating is something that really fascinated me in the Tideways project. Speculating future rituals, behaviors, devices. Right now the material I have here is all very down to earth. I do have this very interesting broad topic on the relationships humans create with objects - and I really like it. I think I should keep going in that direction; this doesn’t need to change. What is clearer now, however, is that I don’t need to limit this in time. These relationships will continue to evolve in the future. They will change, surely.

But how?