Dress Blog

So, Dress For Our Time has arrived at the Science Museum, London, complete with its latest digital adornment and we are thrilled!  Working in collaboration, Helen Storey and digital innovation agency Holition have created an artwork that is beautiful, thought provoking and which clearly visualises the truth behind the figures of one of the world’s most pressing issues, that of human movement around the globe.

The Science Museum have been hoping to work with Helen for many years now.  Her practice exploring cutting edge science, technology and global issues through the medium of fashion is quite unique and Dress For Our Time offered us the perfect opportunity to finally realise this aim.

Our relationship with Helen Storey started a number of years ago when we were developing links with London College of Fashion by hosting inspirational lectures, to Masters students and offering internships. We have now just launched our second major project with the Dress For Our Time at the Science Museum.  

For each project we have developed a four step iterative process. It starts from insight (academic, market and primary research), which then informs the strategy (plan and outcomes), which directs the creative (aesthetic concept), and ONLY THEN do we decide upon the technology (software or hardware) to build.  

These are the experiences, which make you question the purpose of your life.

As we drove along the surrounding camp wall of Za’atari refugee camp in 40-degree heat, people squatted in the width of its narrow shadow, their torsos hugging the perimeter. They were surfing on the edge of the base camp Wi-Fi, in order to communicate with relatives they can no longer be with.

Professor Helen Storey’s Dress for Our Time was displayed at the United Nations in Geneva earlier this month, as part of the TEDxPlacedesNations Transforming Lives event. There, the dress was on show not only to the one thousand people in attendance, but also to the thousands of people watching the event live online.

On 26th November the first physical embodiment of Dress For Our Time will be launched at St Pancras station for 4 days only.  Doing what Helen does best this beautiful installation will use the power of fashion to communicate some of the world’s most complex issues and help change the way we think and act upon climate change.

Earlier this year Helen was interviewed by Bel Jacobs, discussing the project – where it started and how it has developed. Speaking openly about the ‘tipping point’ and why she is now devoting all her time to climate change.

Today we are launching ‘Look Mum No Future’ - a social media campaign, which will shine a light onto ‘Dress For Our Time’ and invite people to join with us in finding new ways to help us wake up, dig deep and inspire each other to bring to the surface what a brilliant and inventive species we are.

It’s time to put our imaginations to work in a new way.

This piece has two beginnings – Here’s the first:
In January of this year I asked esteemed colleagues from industry, science and academia to share with us how the future appeared from their perspectives. None had seen each others presentations before showing them, but each ended, one way or another, on a date, a tipping point, the time when we will need two planets if we continue to consume at this rate in the UK and 5 planets, if the USA continues along the same path too. No one said anything – we’d heard this before in varying ways? Or was the renewed consensus of such a combination of voices, paralysing?