Dr Yvonne Foerster’s lecture on Friday May 2nd titled “Designing Future Bodies” took an anthropological and phenomenological approach to the study of fashion with special consideration to technology. Dr. Foerster began with a discussion of the term “fashion” in France. She explained that prior to industrialization, garments were typically produced in the home. As the technologies associated with industrialization made cotton more affordable, clothing became easier and cheaper to produce and fashion designers began to sell patterns for garments that could be finished in the home. Then the designers and producers moved to the business model of department stores with bi annual or annual fashion lines (rather than the seasonal lines we see today).

Her talk then transitioned into a discussion of the relationship between fashion and art or what we might call “high fashion.” Dr Foerster showed a skirt by Hussein Chalayan a designer who created a coffee table skirt (http://museumarteutil.net/projects/coffee-table-skirt/.) This took the talk toward the idea of “wearables” and the Internet of Things (IOT.) She referenced medical technology such as shirts designed for infants that can detect the arrest of breathing and thus help to curb infant mortality.

I was able to ask a question which went something like, “There is all sorts of empirical research that suggests that smartphones are bad for our mental health. That they leach our attention and ability to focus even when not in use. Should we be more concerned about wearables, what is so different about the transition from iphone to iwatch or google glass?”

Dr Foerster’s response was that technology has already infiltrated and mediated the way in which we experience the world (showing her phenomenological dispositions). She didn’t quite take a stance one the matter as I was hoping she might, but did offer a cautionary response suggesting that because the tech is so new (only a few decades), we should be wary of the potential risks.