Under the direction of Juliane Kahl (Responsive Fashion Institute), Yophi Ignacia (The Future Mode) and Kristina Thiele (Spatial Designer, Member Digital Maker Collective), this workshop offered the participants to experiment with additive manufacturing techniques (laser cutting), introduce the issue of visualisation of data on sustainability, reflect on and intensify the participants’ emotional connection to one of their own garments and add their personal touch through a customising activity.

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Part of this project was a conversation focused on today’s consumers’ understanding and far-reaching impact and importance of data within (a social) sustainability and fashion. Additionally, conversations around data usage and applications with a focus on fashion, product, marketing and experience strategy were part of the event. The debate also explored data and inspire individuals to be creative with this issue, make decisions and understand its potential to influence behaviour.

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Moreover, the participants were introduced to the topic of social connections with garments in terms of social connectivity and, thereafter, got the task to express such a connection by writing a “love letter” to their favourite garment. The result was a letter, scanned and converted into a code. This code was translated and visualised into a unique data pattern for every letter. Using a Mr. Beam laser cutter, those individual patterns were laser-cut onto fabric patches which could be sewn on the participant’s favourite fabric afterwards. The provided feedback of the participants on this workshop has been throughout positive: 80% of the attendees described the mood of the workshop as “excellent” (20% “very good”). The same value applied to the result of the “overall mood/atmosphere of the event”, the “overall experience” and the “engagement facilitators”. 60% described the engagement of other participants as “excellent” (40% “very good”), whereas the time management of the workshop has mainly been rated as “very good” with 60% (40% “excellent”). 40% of the participants have stated that their interest in the topic of this workshop, prior to the event, has been “good” or “very good” (20% “excellent”).

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Due to the lack of event advertising and communications of the festival organisers, the event organisers Juliane Kahl and Yophi Ignacia decided to cancel the previously organised panel but to proceed with the expert talk over lunch. Participating experts were Luciana Ledesma (AI Dragons), Lisa Mayer (Kompetenzteam Kultur- und Kreativwirtschaft, Landeshauptstadt München) and Natasha Binar (Nomad Agency).

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The organisers also decided to proceed with the workshop anyhow, even though they were only a few registrations. In hindsight, the planned events shouldn’t have been scheduled for the last day of the festival, as most of the visitors were gone by then. Nevertheless, the team was able to network and present themselves internationally and leave Amsterdam with many valuable experiences. We had meetings with some very interesting partners (Soho House, Luciana Ledesma from AI Dragons and the event team at CIRCL) to discuss future cooperations.

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