Pola Demianiuk
On the subject of fashion and technology — biomaterials and innovation are taking the rise as we speak to Pola Demianiuk about her very own robotic garments, which make the wearer dress up automatically. With such an approach to fashion design we are beginning to move toward, yet another solution-oriented fashion that can revitalize the way we consume while regenerating our conscious and emotional engagement with the world around us.
Pola, how were your childhood and teenage years? Please tell us about your first memory of exploring creative endeavors.
Growing up with my two younger sisters, we spent every free time drawing together. Regular sketching evolved into creative and systematic competitions, like generating fashion designs or stories based on a single word. „Smart people never get bored" our mum used to say, but these innocent activities did not only keep us but also our creativity going. As an engineer, my father thought me how to solve problems in a relatively unconventional way. Our front door was closing on magnets as an alternative to a rare handle that got broken. At the time, I didn't know it was called a design yet.
During my further education, I enjoyed every art-oriented activity, remaining a nerd at the same time. When it came to the University decisions, Fashion Design took the lead over the Economic studies.
Your academic growth in fashion designing has led you to work with robotic functionality, can you tell us how this idea came out?
It was a real knock-on effect. My Bachelor collection was inspired by the preassumptions and anxieties over biotechnology development. During the research, I dived into some extraordinary concepts of bioengineered materials and got mesmerized by how science can cooperate with nature. Attending some multidisciplinary STEM workshops, I discovered that opening on other fields than design will only enhance my understanding of the world, and so my performance.
Applying for a Master's Degree, I was eager to redirect my career more towards fabric engineering noticing a huge potential in biomaterials. I was rejected from the Innovative Textile Development program due to my lack of experience in scientific research, but it did not stop me from a more engineer-oriented approach to garments on my DIY terms. My further research and experiments were circulating over biomimetics, bioplastics, and inflatability. To make a long story short, I discovered many findings that had been driving an already existing, but still quite novel, soft robotic technology.
It was a milestone for my research to acknowledge that all my interests form another quality capable of so much more than the sum of them. I spent weeks exploring different structures, movements, methods of fabrication, and scaling, transferring these findings into the textile properties. Another step was to implement them into my field, fashion.
The functionality aspect of the garments is not a new concept. I remember first seeing Hussain Chalayan doing it decades ago. But now the concept is more relevant than ever as we are becoming technologically dependent. How and where do you see your garments being utilized at their optimum?
One can distinguish functional garments, like the ones including smart textiles, electronics, or other high-tech solutions, from kinetic ones, that do not need to be functional at all but are visually attractive only.
Having the soft robotics potential deeply explored, I asked myself how humanity could benefit from soft actuators being applied to the garment context. Although this technology is being explored in medical and therapeutic fields, I noticed a gap in the dressing up of assistive devices. Based on soft-robotic principles, the clothing embedded with the wearable structures acquires a property of self-assembly on the body, without or with its minimal intervention.
My project questions the status quo imposing the garment as static and the body as an active agent in the dressing up process. Through this speculative approach, the work introduces a fresh relation between body form and clothing in the service of wellbeing. In other words, the garment design assists the body to be dressed providing enormous possibilities and facilities for different types and stages of body immobilities, at some point. Conditions like disabilities, injuries, pregnancy, or simply elderly will no longer require sophisticated body movements to accomplish this everyday activity.
Please talk a bit about your overall creative process that goes into producing the designs... Can you tell us the challenges that you work through?
The main challenge was to determine the field of my work and the problem I was actually solving. After a series of exciting, but honestly vague experiments, I had to extract the most substantial discoveries and determine my methodology. Questioning the dressing up system, I realized that I need to reconsider not only the mechanism but also the form of garments to break through the paradigm, where the pre-made form of garment determines the body movements necessary to wear it.
Therefore, the process is split into two paths. I begin with the previously explored type of actuator and its properties like the type of movement, possible size, robustness, etc. Most of these properties depend on the type of fabrication. Either the laminated fabric is welded on an ultrasonic machine or elastic bladders are inserted between elastic knitting. Placing them on different parts of the body I explore and adjust movements necessary to close and align with body parts. Simultaneously, I develop a one-piece garment pattern that will assemble on the body in either standing or sitting position. Both of them are later connected, forming one, symbiotic system.
An important feature of my design is a small surface of inflation, which leaves more space for the conventional fabric, its expression, haptics, and breathability. Because they are actuated pneumatically, most of the garments do not consist of rigid or electronic parts which makes them comfortable and washable. Other challenges are the gravity force that I fight against, the fabric properties like stiffness, weight, and many different technical issues.
What are the next concepts you looking forward to integrating with?
My goal, for now, is to defend my master’s Project and continue my exciting research. Possible improvements are, for example, sensors and circuits that would make my design interactive. My next step is to develop self-assembling shoes since they seem to be the most problematic part of the wardrobe to put on and do up. I also see a huge potential in soft robotic yarns, the same mechanism explored in microscale at MIT, KTH, and other innovative labs. This technology could improve my design and make it way more feasible commercially.
My great ambition is to cooperate with research teams in a multidisciplinary environment because I already know this is the future of design, a better future for all of us. I have been also considering start-up entrepreneurship, but this requires a team of engineers, designers, and investors on board. I am open and excited about any cooperation offered from different fields.
interview JAGRATI MAHAVER
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