A tightly focused mini-collection explored one concept through contrasting sculptural silhouettes.
Reactive couture collection · 2014
083
A six-look reactive couture collection in which garments appear to breathe and pulse, translating the fragile rhythms of life into movement across the body.
Read the project ↓
Project typeCollaboration · Fashiontech
ThemesWearables & e-textiles · Materials & making
FormReactive couture mini-collection
Year2014
CollaborationLeandro Cano × POPKALAB
RecognitionSamsung EGO Innovation Project winner
PresentedSamsung EGO · Madrid, 18 February 2014
01 · Proposition
Garments hover between inertia and life
083 uses embedded mechanisms to give sculptural garments movements associated with heartbeat and breathing.
Created by fashion designer Leandro Cano with POPKALAB, 083 brought technology into a six-look couture collection. The title refers to the decrease in body temperature during the hours after death. Against this image of cooling and stillness, the garments acquire subtle signs of life: surfaces pulse, expand and stir as if animated from within.
The collection combined technological mechanisms with demanding material constructions in latex, leather, crochet, feathers and transparent sculptural elements. Rather than attaching a gadget to clothing, 083 embedded movement within the language of couture, allowing breath and heartbeat to become material, silhouette and performance.
Video documentation
Watch 083 on the runway
02 · Experience
Sense, embed, animate
- 01
Translate
Heartbeat and breathing provided the bodily movement vocabulary for the collection.
- 02
Embed
Mechanisms were integrated into latex, feathers and complex couture constructions without separating technology from dress.
- 03
Animate
The finished looks shift from apparent inertia into pulsing and breathing forms on the runway.
03 · Reflection
Life appears as a material event
083 sets the thermal image of a body after death against garments that perform the smallest visible signs of being alive.
The collection makes technology operate through ambiguity. Its mechanisms do not optimise the wearer or deliver information; they disturb the boundary between inert object and living body. Heartbeat and breath become qualities of material behaviour, while couture construction gives those rhythms volume, weight and theatrical presence. The collaboration demonstrates how electronic and mechanical systems can participate in fashion’s symbolic language rather than remain external accessories.
The movements of life became the organising interaction language for the garments.
083 won the first Samsung EGO Innovation Project and received support for its development.
Exhibition history
Selected presentations
Samsung EGO Innovation Project
Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid
Madrid, Spain
Credits & archive
Project record
- Fashion design
- Leandro Cano
- Interactive technology
- POPKALAB / Ricardo O’Nascimento
- Development support
- Samsung EGO Innovation Project
