esc button
עב
search icon

Virtual Storytailor

by 

Ira Goldman

Design and Technology track

Mentor — 

Dr. Romi Mikolinsky

How about getting emotionally attached to a garment through a virtual twin?

I’m fascinated by the way people become attached to their clothes. Based on my experiences as a fashion designer, I find that it is easier to become attached to a garment created out of consideration for the interaction between it and the wearer: how to get into the garment, how to take it off, in what posture is it laid down at the end of the day, in which social and other context the wearer walks around with it in the world.

I imagine a space where we can try on second-hand tailored jackets and be exposed to their digital copy. The copy stores information about its physical twin: how the garment used to look and what is the story of those who have worn it before. This way, we will buy clothes not only according to our taste and physical sizes, but also tailored to our emotional, cultural and spiritual sizes.

I am inspired by the works of artist Christian Boltanski, who exhibits quotidian objects as anthropological installations: looking at them illustrates to us how each life story is unique, while at the same time how they are all similar.

We know fashion companies that cultivate emotional attachment to the brand using a story. For example, the Toms shoe company donates a pair of shoes to children in poor countries for every pair bought in its stores. The emotional impact has forged brand loyalty, and the clientele only keeps growing. How can we cultivate emotional attachment and loyalty to the garment itself?

In digital fashion, the physical relationship is replaced by a virtual one. Since 2016, millions have been buying digital clothes that have no physical existence and have never been sewn. The fashion world begins to adopt technologies based on digital twins in manufacturing, marketing and sales. Soon we will be able to obtain, next to the physical garment, its virtual copy, worn by our twin in the metaverse.

What is the impact of this trend? How can you produce attachment to both a virtual and a physical object? This is the challenge at the core of this project.

No items found.

Ira Goldman

Ira Goldman is a Tel Aviv-based fashion designer with extensive experience in tailoring and multiproduct design in local, UK and US brands. She is a lecturer in the Fashion Department at Shenkar and in the Jewelry & Fashion Design Department at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. Goldman holds a B.Des in fashion design from Shenkar and is a recent graduate of the M.Des Program in Industrial Design, Design & Technology track, at Bezalel. In her work, Goldman explores emotional aspects of human interaction with objects, from the production stage to the final user experience.

More projects