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Seminar with Patricia Hepp
KISD SS 2016

Title:
we confess when we dress ...
reflecting on our living units

Regarding our enclosures, our skins as a shelter for both, body and personality, the seminar dealt with our outer facades as information board for the contents. In reflecting what surrounds us, we’ll find an individual approach towards the designed space that forms our living units.

In central research was the gender specific appearance and the concept of adaption for instance in the case of voluntary uniforms. Considering the choice of our body coverings as an individual statement, the persons who design this body ambiance take a key role. We discussed if the designer of garments, objects or spaces can influence or even change a conception of society by creating living units and with this manipulating the people’s appearance and communication. Can a society’s gender-specific concept be manipulated by design?

We also pondered about the political dimension of fashion, and our responsibility to commit ourselves to sustainability in fashion, its production and its sales strategies. Clearing the terminology »fashion« towards the idea of clothing, the seminar gave a forum in speculating about the mechanism of change in fashion as well as in other fields of design.

The theoretical discourse about our living units in their spatial, social and philosophical extent was accompanied by practical design tasks. These tasks are also documented in a book and confirm the different topics.
The different topics were introduced by a series of lectures. Each talk was documented by the participating students of the course. These reports form the beginning of each chapter in the book.

The benefit of the group was its internationality, that gave us the opportunity to gather information from most different cultural backgrounds. We came far and gained a good insight into the different aspects of fashion.

Patricia Hepp

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