Prosumerism within Textile Design.

Reading chapter 4 of "The Culture of Design" by Guy Julier was a bit of a nightmare for me. Usually reading is not a chore but due to the insanely complex language and jargon used I struggled to understand a great deal of what I was reading.

However, I did sit up and take notice when I was reading about the "prosumer." I researched into this as I was intrigued by the concept and wanted to find out more. I came across the book "The 3rd Wave" written by Alvin Toffler. It discusses the idea of the prosumer as a crossover between the producer and the consumer. This crossover comes as designers are creating products that consumers can tailor personally to suit their own needs. This change has occurred, I believe, as society want things now. Whilst Toffler wrote this book in 1980 and is mainly looking at technological things such as self service atm machines and satellite systems I think that it is very relevent to todays society. People are now using self-service checkouts and phones can be personalised with "app's". People want things that they can manipulate to fully satisfy their own needs and customise to their own tastes and I believe that this is being reflected hugely within the design world.

Within the world of Textile Design I believe that the work of Fernando Brizio shows prosumerism perfectly. He created a dress with lots of pockets made to hold felt tip pens. The concept is that the ink will bleed into the material creating an individual design, that the wearer can control, each time. The dress can then be washed and the process can start again. This also makes it a very good piece of renewable clothing as it can keep up with the fast changing society we live in.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=asggkr0MIeY

I also feel that the work of Joanne Hodge is relevent to this idea as she takes the prosumer idea one step further establishing a relationship between the garment and the wearer. The collection of printed garments she created change due to touch and uv lights. Her website is definaltely worth a look.

http://www.joprints.co.uk/