Our daughter Diana has been busy at the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center working on a grant for a project called Fairytale Fashion. It is a program for young girls to explore, design, and make fashions with technology embellishments, combining craft and science into a fun experience. Diana's culmination of the grant was a fashion show in New York Wednesday night where she unveiled 9 new looks, complete with glowing wires, sound sensitive LEDs, inflatable dresses, and deployable structured hoodies. Over 300 were in attendance as the event started up at the Eyebeam Atelier in Chelsea on West 21st Street. The runway was crafted by overhead lights and the music was provided by a eclectic mellow mix by a circuit bending quartet of DJs. I was one of many photographers there capturing a very special moment for Diana at her first runway show in New York.
A lot goes into putting on a show like this, and we were in New York a day early to help out and do some behind the scenes photography. The final touches were made to the garments in a lab, with as much soldering and chip programming going on as cutting, sewing, and steaming. An interesting mix of craft and technology.
There was hair and makeup to coordinate, final fitting of the models, and of course program debugging on the fly. Another dimension to the usual chaos of a fashion show. For a video of the show go to the Fairytale Fashsion website and the Craftzine blog. Here is an article about the show in the June 2010 issue of The Atlantic.