Ulla Engeström

Open-Clothes community

Open-Clothes is a community of young Japanese fashion activists who want to change the rules of the Japanese fashion industry. The community's objective is to offer clothes in "'I Size", that is, individually designed and produced. Ars Electronica on Open-Clothes:

"Open-clothes.com" is a meeting place for tailors showcasing their private creations, and potential customers with a taste for extraordinary, new custom-tailored garments. Articles of clothing can be displayed, scrutinized, critiqued and purchased online. Buyers contact producers directly and order items of clothing "made to measure. (...) The site also offers a stark contrast to the strictly hierarchical and centrally organized Japanese clothing industry that generally does little to nurture newcomers or small producers with no support from large production firms. "Open-Clothes" thus supports the entire value-creation chain in fashion making and contributes to the resurrection of a culture of small-scale producers that had become extinct in the wake of industrialization and globalization.

Founded in 2000, Open-Clothes has currently about 4,500 members. (I want to join too but I haven't found an English version of their page!)

Via Regine

A wish list for social software developers

Following up on my talk at Reboot yesterday, here are some ideas about tools that could help create the long tail of fashion.

An 'iLife for crafting' that would enable:
- combining garments to make an outfit (see paperdollheaven.com)
- designing custom patterns and colours on the fabric
- designing and printing the patterns for cutting the fabric (for a current software example, see Garment Designer)
- sending the designs to a tailor (like sending your photos to a photo shop for development)
- designing and printing your own labels

A 'TypePad for crafters' that makes it easy to:
- build a portfolio of your creations
- document and share techniques and patterns iFabricate-style
- add cool backgrounds for presenting the product and lifestyle photos
- sell the items through PayPal, and maybe also list them on eBay

A last.fm-style recommendation system for fashion
- with an open unique-naming sheme for fashion items (this is essential!)

Going to Reboot

Here is a short abstract for my presentation at the Reboot seminar in Copenhagen:

Craftblogging – A window into the Long Tail of Fashion?

In Europe and Japan, the trend against mass-produced fashion is growing. An increasing number of people prefer to buy their apparel from a designer someone has recommended, or one that they personally know. This presentation is about craftblogging - producing hand-made fashion items and publishing them on weblogs. Examples of how people produce, tag and share self-made fashion items on-line provide an opportunity to understand the potential of the Long Tail of Fashion.

UPDATE:
For a summary of my presentation, see
David Weinberger's weblog
BoingBoing
Loic Le Meur blog
Participant notes from Reboot