Empathy Fashion Media

When we observe human communication, it is known that body gestures, facial expressions, and touch can sometimes explain human’s intended mind and intrinsic information. This indirect and unusual communication ways are also taking significant roles in our human communication to share delicates emotions with others and it helps people to communicate each other with true and warm heart.

We have expressed personality, occupations, surrounding circumstances, other ambient messages through clothes and accessories from ancient times, and currently, thanks to the wearable technologies and related technologies, we can embed electronics device and smart materials into clothing.

From the past, many people have used cloth as a non interactive communication media tool. However, recently owing to the development of wearable technologies, we can feel add interaction to the clothing communication to express some kind of emotions using the visual elements, touch, auditory and smell in clothing. Fore more, clothing directly contacts to our real skins and sensory organs, and this affects our emotions and behaviors. For example, we can feel self-esteem and refreshing feelings from changing clothes and accessories style and this psychological positive changes can help people communicate positively. For this reason, clothing can be said as emotional media that importantly affects our communication ways, activities, emotions. This research aims to express the love and that kind of delicate human communications and contexts in wearable clothing media. And I beleive Fashion media can soften our communication lives and encourage our communications.


Application I - Empathy fashion media for physical bondings in local communication

On-screen interaction devices with the Internet enable us to utilize and make social networks around the world faster and easier. But ironically, it made people connect to their own Internet societies separately even though they gathered together to have lunch. And family members have difficulties to communicate with each other, even though they live together, they are busy reply to their emails and SNSs on each other in their rooms separately. This scenario asks the sacrifices of our real relationships in local communications and eventually it is seriously effecting their relationships. It is interesting to know what is happening in the world, but also it is important to know what is happening around especially, family, friend, neighbor, and local community.

The Empathy fashion media project is about the next generation of fashion that helps physical-social network technologies based on wearer's contextual communication. It can enrich our local communication activities based on understanding the partner’s context. It will help to promote emotional and reliable communications in the society between family members, friends, neighbors, and local communities which need physical communications with each other.