Dutch based designer Anouk Wipprecht is a rising star in the emerging field of ‘fashionable technology’; a rare combination of sartorial knowhow combined with engineering smarts and style, she has in a very short period created an impressive body of tech-enhanced designs bringing together fashion and technology in an unusual way. She creates technological couture; with background in fashion design combined with engineering, science and interaction design, she creates systems around the body that tend towards artificial intelligence; projected as ‘host’ systems on the human body, her designs move, breath, and react to the environment around them.
Above from her tremendous technical skills is her ability to craft a unique sartorial style for herself. Part futuristic, part anime-meets-high fashion, her aesthetics are set apart from more utilitarian wearables (which are all about function) and can be considered artistic creations in themselves. Many of her designs have been exhibited in exhibitions as well as fashion events. In Anouk’s designs the technology creates the aesthetics as opposed to simply enhancing a function which is hidden. Keen on showing the nuts and bolts of the garments (often the valves and mechanisms are displayed on the outside) we witness the designs creating their own unique forms of interaction, movement and meaning.
