Uyuni- commuter// Urban cycling clothing

Final Master’s work in co-design and sustainable fashion

Urban cycling clothing for women. 2015 Collection.

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Photography: Beatriz Tafaner
Model: Ana Chi

The clothing urban cyclers currently wear doesn’t attend to their functional, technical and aesthetic needs. This field has not been previously explored or investigated at all. Urban bikers usually wear conventional clothes: sometimes walking wear, sometimes sport clothing.

Uyuni- urban cycling clothing joins technology, material research, co-design and sustainable urban mobility. The process of creating the fabrics focused on considering ethical issues as well as using new and advanced scientific technology. The project challenge consisted of designing clothing using more innovative and technologically smart textile characteristics while also being respectful to the environment.

An extensive bionic investigation into natural bioluminescence guided the project to incorporate materials with high refraction rates and high albedo. As a result, materials such as fibreglass and salt crystals were incorporated. Fibreglass in fashion acts as a smart textile receptive to changes in ones surroundings (light emissions). This feature, as a kind of reflector, enhances road safety.

The name of the collection, Uyuni, is a reference to the world’s largest salt flat, which remains the guide and point of reference throughout the entire project. Because of that, it’s no wonder that both the bionic investigation and creative conceptualization of the collection concluded with such similar processes and materials: water and salt. An example of this is the jewellery created from a water salt saturated solution.

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