Walking The Traditional X Digital Bridge
A hand illustrated fashion submission for the tech-centric Sakura Bomber contest
Ah! The Bridge!
The recent Sakura Bomber design contest marks my first publicly recognized endeavor to share traditional art (hand drawn fashion illustration) on the same stage as digital creative works. I am really excited about the “honorable mention” I received for the traditional submission!
The acknowledgement is a significant leverage for me to walk my talk: to practically introduce the Bridge to my “non-tech” professional, and social reach. Mighty grateful to Christopher Sicurella, Choice LGBTQIA+, and Alexander Aleksashev-Arno for the inclusive creative opportunity.
What Did I Submit?
The design contest was themed on “embroidered cherry blossoms on a bomber jacket”, celebrating global digital pride for Japan.
My taking the traditional route in a predominantly tech-driven space, was to assert coexistence between the two disparate mediums - traditional and digital: they can support each other, producing enhanced outputs and compounded possibilities. It is important to discern support from substitution here; both mediums are defiantly independent of each other. Ethics of design such as authenticity, utility, and sustainability, have a significant value in this equation, but I will hold that element for another write to focus this article on how the Bridge could be built using the hand sketch.
Contrary to the conventional sporty silhouette of a bomber jacket, I rendered an elegant, luxury look. As a tribute to Japan’s cultural arts, I incorporated a few of its traditional craft elements in the contemporary streetwear theme:
- Silk base fabric tie-dyed in dusky mint using SHIBORI, a peculiar technique of tying fabric to resist dye color from seeping in, and
- 3D flowers in cherry-blossom organza folded into ORIGAMI flowers, the very familiar art of paper folding, and hand embroidered on the jacket. If you notice, these flowers wrap around the collar as 3D projections. I conceptualized them to be an AR filter experience, but they could also be 3D printed.
The Sketch Is The Bridge?
No. The traditional sketch submission has opened conversations for the possible Bridge build. The Bridge appears when the intervention of one medium augments the other (proportions of integration vary).
Here’s how Web3 and Digital Technology support and secure this hand-drawn fashion illustration:
FOR DESIGN ARTISTS
Ownership and Permanence: Posting content on Web 2 platforms like Instagram or Medium always carries an iota of apprehension about the stability of the platform and subsequent loss of content. Platforms built on Decentralized or Web3 Storage Networks (IPFS, Arweave) ensure the illustration and its data are safely and permanently stored, even if the host websites should dissolve.
Authenticated, Transparent Sales Transaction: The illustration can be sold as an artwork or design concept on marketplaces built on a Blockchain such as Ethereum, Tezos, and Solana, and Decentralized Storage systems. While the illustration itself is permanently stored in the storage containers, product data and sales transaction details are immutably recorded on the Blockchain. The non-tamperable record specifies the creator, the buyer, seller, the re-seller and buyer, respective transaction dates, price of its every sell/resell, sale price distribution, and rarity of the sketch (a one of one, or x copies). All data is laid clean on the table, accessible to anyone. This record equates to a certificate of authenticity for the buyer.
FOR FASHION MANUFACTURERS
Design Software: Let us assume a potential client is excited about the design concept; the illustration needs to be fashioned into a physical bomber jacket customized to their specific size (or sizes for a ready-to-wear label). Design Software like Clo3d translates the two dimensional design into a 3D prototype, simulating the flow and folds of the silk, the fall of tie and dye patterns, and embroidery placements onto a custom-sized virtual model.
This capacity and liberty to experiment with colors, fabrics, surface textures, and pattern drafting with zero physical waste cannot be expected of traditional sampling methods. Another upside - the client might appreciate the true-to-life virtual visual of the jacket before the design is physically manufactured.
UTILITY
Fashion for Avatars: As physical fashion, the illustrated jacket, as with all other fashion styles, has a finite rack-span. Shifting its utility to digitally wearable formats exposes the design to a visibly expanding consumer group that uses the digital space for work and play.
Metaverse (digital world) users participate in the space as avatars (digital representations) of themselves. Statistics for 2024 show more than 400 million active users worldwide. Although over 80% of digital citizens are under 18 gamers, businesses are embracing virtual work settings, dipping into a global talent pool and hugely saving on space expenses. The metaverse workplace is gaining considerable momentum with its projected market value expected to touch US$4.9 billion this year (Statista).
Augmented Reality: The Origami flowers draping the jacket neckline can be projected as Augmented Reality (AR) filters: virtual overlays on the physical garment using a scanner on a device like a smartphone. The enhanced physical X virtual experience of wearing the physical jacket increases utility value.
A.I.: As a traditionalist, employing Artificial Intelligence to generate my fashion collection from inception to finish is disconcerting. I input detailed and specific prompts (text and image) permitting minimal space for the generator to permute, combine, and play with design options. I also dislike training the generator model on fashion data that is not mine.
I fed the illustration as an image prompt and received exciting outputs generated within permissible parameters of the hand-sketch.
These are style-lines I absolutely would not perceive of; not much different than brainstorming concepts with a colleague. No matter my creative rigidity, using AI tools refresh design tendencies and nudge ideation to a different direction.
Use Case: Master art-skills cannot be sustained if preserving the relics and their glory is not supported by education. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, unveiled its Sleeping Beauties collection for the public following its Met Gala extravaganza. The exhibition, open from May 10 to September 2, showcases the museum’s prized archival fashion pieces too fragile to be exhibited on mannequins. Using AI, and 3D digital tools, the museum has enabled visitors to experience the glory of master craftsmanship.
Forward-thinking fashion systems resuscitate and sustain traditional skills using tools of today and tomorrow without corrupting the original core.
Dear Reader, this write is not an attempt to glamorize the potential of technology in traditional fashion systems. Using technology is how fashion is reinventing its wearability experience and addressing its shortfalls, there is no “maybe” about it. We just need to find the piece that aligns with our individual purpose of being in the industry. - Quanta