The big day is almost here, a date you won’t want to miss out on if you love fashion and technology, the new edition of RESHAPE which will take place on the 4th of October in the Fira in Barcelona. The event is a unique opportunity to see the latest innovations in wearables and fashion, and to take a closer look at the best international projects as well as conferences and round tables (you can see the program here).

So we got back in touch with Aldo Sollazzo, director of Noumena and one of the organizers of RESHAPE so he could tell us a bit about the event and the how technological innovations are being applied to the world of fashion.


So Catchy!: Aldo, we love your proposal for integrating the latest technologies in the world of fashion. What pushed you to choose wearables as the theme for RESHAPE2017?

Aldo Solazzo: The human body represents a kind of new frontier for experimenting with the impact of new technologies. Last year, Philip Beesley said that the body is a landscape of forces waiting to be explored. We want to translate these forces into design processes that will revolutionize the way in which we understand clothing.

SC!: Based on your experience, what projects that are on the horizon have surprised or excited you most?

AS: There are a number of projects, and creative people, that are working in interesting areas. What they have in common is their interdisciplinary nature. The ability to mix languages, create products that introduce new ways of perceiving and experiencing everything around you. I’m thinking of Behnaz Farahi, Cecilia Raspanti, Anastasia Pistofidou, Niccolò Casas, and Anouk Wipprecht. The true value isn’t with one individual, there are no solitary stars, all of them are the result of a collective that is transforming the panorama of design in every sector.

Author: Maria Alejandra Mora Sanchez. Project name: LOOM

SC!: After RESHAPE17, what are the next projects that you’ll be working on?

AS: Reshape is a project that celebrates the ability of a distributed network to produce knowledge. It’s an important challenge because it gives us the opportunity to see and to touch ‘state of the art’ new strategies for design. Many consider Reshape to be simply another competition or a run-of-the-mill award. For us, it’s “collective frame of research”. So we always talk everything out before launching a new call and activating our network. This year, we had the participation of companies like Adidas, Autodesk and Sony CSL. In the next one, we would like to tell the story of how our designers begin to work with these companies and define new ways of thinking in the world of Fashion.

So, briefly, our next project will be to help the designers from RESHAPE grow.

SC!: How do you see Spain in relation to other countries in relation to innovation in technology and fashion?

AS: There is a lot of desire to explore and experiment here. The way forward isn’t always clear, but Spain isn’t afraid of stepping into a new world. It all begins, as always, with education. Spain has quite a few institutes and schools that are extremely visionary, run by people who understand that the true challenge is to open up to the future, and to mix different types of knowledge.

Author: Noumena. Project name: Photoreactive wearable

SC!: What would you say is the most important or interesting hotspot or center of innovation as far as advanced technologies and fashion design are concerned?

AS: The most important center today is the Internet, and the positive values that it represents. A great example is Fabricademy, an online course distributed around the world by Fab Labs, which launched on the 26th of September.

SC!: Would you like to share with us, and with the readers of So Catchy!, what are the trends that you think we should be keeping our eyes on in the world of fashion?

AS: The theme behind RESHAPE this year is focused on programmable skins. How do you begin to design the behavior of a material? How can you give it a function that augments the possibilities of our own bodies to communicate, perceive and respond to stimulus in our environment? We’d like to focus on those themes, and multidisciplinary design as keys for exploring and developing new solutions.


Images courtesy of RESHAPE17

Translation and layout by Michael Padilla