Abstract

Performative wearable technology has become a powerful medium for storytelling, advocacy, and social change. At the intersection of fashion and human-computer interaction (HCI), performative wearable technology explores how wearable technology can be utilized as an expressive tool, enabling designers to convey embodied and personal experiences. This thesis explores two distinct categories of performative wearables: (1) wearable empathy tools, designed to immerse the wearer in an experience of another, and (2) fashion-technology garments, which utilize performance and spectacle to engage audiences with social issues visually. By examining these two approaches, this research aims to understand how performative contexts influence the design process of performative wearables addressing social issues and how contextual factors impact the final designs. To achieve this, I employ qualitative research methods to explore designers' design strategies to create empathy tools and fashion-technology runway garments. I focus on the use of Research through Design (RtD) methodologies, where I incorporate first-person autobiographical accounts, soma design, and artifact evaluation to document and critically reflect on the design and impact of two performative wearable projects: HACKLES.empathy}and HACKLES.runway. The first, an empathy tool, is designed to simulate and communicate the lived experience of anxiety that I, as a woman, feel when walking alone at night, aiming to foster a deeper understanding through embodied interaction. The second, a runway garment, translates the same narrative into a spectacle-driven fashion-technology piece intended for audience engagement and public discourse on safety and gendered experiences in urban spaces. Through comparative analysis, my research shows that the design process for performative wearables is heavily affected by and informed by how the garment will be experienced. In addition, first-person experiences embedded in the design of empathy tools and fashion-technology garments lead to rich expressions of social issues. Personal experiences are crucial in these designs, and designers who are not inspired by personal experiences should collaborate with individuals who have. This thesis contributes to ongoing discourse in HCI, design research, and interactive fashion by synthesizing insights from fashion activism, embodied interaction, and first-person HCI design. The work proposes a design framework for performative wearables that helps designers navigate the trade-offs between individual experience and visual communication in wearable technology for social awareness. Ultimately, this research highlights the potential of wearable technologies to transcend their functional utility, instead positioning performative wearables as a critical medium for storytelling, activism, and empathy-building.

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