Today at So Catchy! we bring you another entry about our favorite yearly event merging fashion and technology, RESHAPE. We got in touch with the team behind the event and talked with our friend Aldo Sollazzo, director of Noumena and Reshape and Laura Civetti, Designer at Noumena and Coordinator of Reshape.

Reshape17 exhibition

For those of you who may not know, the yearly event organized by Noumena, is an online platform that promotes research, education and production of digital ideas, based on innovative design and manufacturing processes that seek to create a new market based on the economy of knowledge.

The event is rapidly approaching and the deadline for submissions has been extended to the end of the day on the 7th of September.

For more info, be sure to visit their site: http://youreshape.io/reshape18/


Reshape17 Forum – Simone Cesano from Adidas

SC!: First of all, congratulations Aldo on the 4th edition of RESHAPE. Tell us a bit about what’s new this time around and why the competition is separated into two parts.

Aldo Sollazzo:
 Thanks for the interview! It’s a pleasure for the team at Reshape to work with So Catchy! on this new edition. To answer the question dividing Reshape into two categories allows us to expand the range of applications that designers can propose, focuses the event on defining new relationships between developing technologies, people, and the human and natural ecosystems that define our habitat.

We’re interested in understanding which of the proposals can be implemented in our society, those that respond to emerging needs and adapt to the economic, climatic, and energy context. We invite designers to focus on solutions that reconsider the different processes of design, production, and consumption while keeping a critical eye on the current system. We hope to foment a vision that centers on defining the new balance between the different forces molding our planting, and our society, now.

For these reasons, we’ve divided the event in two categories, giving us possibility to include different companies, institutions and experts who can more effectively guide the talent and solutions that Reshape receives.

And the impact that this all can have on our day-to-day lives. We want our designers to focus on the question of what new relationships can be established within context we find ourselves, with the energy solutions we have at hand, and the current social context. For a new solution to be distributed, it needs to reconsider a new paradigm, reshaping it.

Reshape17 Forum – Award Ceremony

SC!: Of all the projects presented in previous editions, what patterns do you see repeated most often? Where do you see the future of wearable technology moving?

Laura Civetti: Among all editions we recognize the main pattern that binds all proposals presented in the past editions, representing a real new paradigm for the industry.

This common trend that we observe is an emerging interdisciplinarity connecting all process of design and production. The capacity to create a transversal design methodology merging different technologies, allows designers to generate unique products able to respond to new needs while exploring new design solution that enhances a reshape of our society.

A close example is the awarded proposal from the last edition of Reshape, GS3-Gradual spine support system. The designers Snezhana Paderina and Nikita Replyanski, which respectively are Fashion designer and expert on Project design proposed a device that provides dynamic back support for patients suffering from medical conditions, using data assessed by an integrated neural network, anatomy analysis to design the support and fashion technique to apport comfort at the whole garment.

It is interesting to see how we can empower ourselves, establishing new associations among machines, body performance, our habitat, not only by wearing technology but becoming part of it. How will this new relationship affect design? What are the boundaries that a designer should recognize for his own profession? Will a designer draw a neural network while shaping a dress? A new shift is happening and Reshape focuses on collecting those visions, building a bridge among key market players, educators, designers, researchers, consumers with the aim of fostering innovation in our Society.

Reshape17 – Textile the Skin by Mingjing lin, Yingjun Li

SC!: RESHAPE is a pioneer and innovative project in our country, Do you feel that you are receiving the sufficient support, from the general as specialized public?

Laura Civetti: In the last four years, Reshape received a wide exposure from many media.

We participated to several international events, from FABX in Barcelona, Boston, Shenzhen, Chile to the Maker Faires of Barcelona, Rome and many others.

From all the competitions organized, we collected more than 152 projects, from 200 designers coming from everywhere in the World.

Alone we wouldn’t have achieved any of these results.

AS: It is crucial to mention important collaborations such the Italian Consulate of Barcelona, building with us stronger connections among institutions, key market players and young talents; the Fabricademy program, shaping new professionals for the fashion industry, Materfad, IaaC, Design by Data, IED each building a knowledge ecosystem that raises questions over the role of technology in our Society.

Here in Barcelona, we count on the fundamental partnership with IN(3D)USTRY From Needs to Solutions, with whom we organized the RESHAPE FORUM (Oct 16th-18th 2018), an important event fostering a community of designers, makers, industries, institutions pushing the boundaries of innovation and defining new emergent markets.

During the Reshape Forum, we will meet many of the actors involved in Reshape.

Adidas, Sony CSL, Autodesk, Bulgari, Luxottica, Wasp, Marcelo Vilà , and many other companies will join us in Barcelona to discuss and activate new innovative solutions responding to emerging market needs.

Barcelona is an active environment, perfect to host such event and trigger new opportunities for the Reshape ecosystem.

Reshape 17 – GS3 Gradual Spine Support System by Snezhana Pderina & Nikita Replyanski

SC!: What other projects are you working on for the future?

AS: In Noumena we are developing a methodology that combines programmable materials, advanced manufacturing and computational design, exploring novel applications responding to the emerging needs of our society.

We are proposing a new manufacturing process with our partners of WAAG and PRIMLAB, that expands the possibilities of 3d printing combining a material that absorbs pollutants from the air with textiles.

An interesting challenge that aims at rebalancing the environmental impact of the Textile Industry, embedding in new hybrid fabrics the ability to mitigate the presence of Carbon Dioxide and Hydrogen oxide, converting the industry itself and any consumer wearing this special cloth into climatic agents.

We explore materials as Bioplastic or living organism as Mycelium, in ongoing collaborative research projects with biologists and material engineers, defining new intersections between the digital and organic, negotiating among human body and the built environment.

With Marcelo Vilà, we are also reframing the concept of retail, envisioning spaces that interact with the users, adapt to different configurations, monitor habits in order to extract patterns from the usage of the store to inform new market strategies.

We live in an exciting moment. As Kevin Kelly says “There has never been a better day in the history of humanity to invent something. There has never been a better time with more opportunities, more openings, lower barriers.”

And we are not too late to start.


All images courtesy of RESHAPE

Translation and Layout by Michael Padilla