Green Gown Awards 2017 - University of the Arts London, London College of Fashion - Highly Commended

Laura’s work is dedicated towards building autonomy into garments, using fastenings as ‘probes’ in co-design methods to analyse the physical and cognitive consequences of stroke.

Considerations for the type of body movement used within the fastening process aims to improve stroke rehabilitation methods. It is considered, that by incorporating tasks within familiar, routine settings such as dressing, that rehabilitation can become more integrated and invisible within everyday life.

Using unconventional methods of paper and clay modelling in garment design, Laura works with 3D Printing Engineers to proof-test concepts, developing tooling to create the fastenings which reduce production waste by up to 70%.

The fastenings are created using FSA Rubber, working with rubber tapping communities in the Brazilian Amazon, providing an income for 11 locals and helping to preserve 500 hectares of the rainforest.

The full paper of this work can be found published in Kew Gardens, Library and Archives Collection.

Top 3 learnings:

1 To enhance the garment-user dialogue by considering a wider range of cognitive and mobility abilities.

2 To increase cross sensory modalities of tactility, kinetic and proprioceptive experiences in garment design.

3 To preserve and enhance economic value of resources whilst increasing the skillset of makers.

Videos

• Laura Salisbury (click to hide)