Towards a Pre-personal and Affective Fashion: Lived Experience and Soft-Wearable Technologies

Fashion is commonly regarded for its expressive qualities that re-present the identity of the wearer. Notions, howev- er, that there is no one stable identity to be found in or for human beings, help challenge that representation may not be the most suitable lens through which to discover fashion’s full potential. Moreover, experimenting with our identities through changing fashions may be one of the causes for overconsumption and its related problems of exploitation of workers as well as of our planet. Therefore, four thinkers that offer a different take on what character- ises human bodies are examined and related to fashion. It is subsequently explored what textile integrated technol- ogies may have to offer for experiencing fashion differently and more ethically. I turn to French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari to examine fashion’s affective, rather than representational qualities. Then, a bridge is created with Robert Pepperell’s concepts of interconnectedness and extension, to argue that we can no longer re- gard the human being as central or dominant when it comes to fashion practices. In addition, a pathway for what the role of technology may mean for future fashion experiences is rolled out. Lastly, the connection between tech- nology and the body as Hermann Schmitz suggests is fleshed out referring to the uncommon expressive potential textile integrated technologies may have to offer to better some of the problems that must currently be related to fashion as a representant of a person’s identity.