INTERVIEW
Disconnect yourself from reality.
Paulien Routs is a design researcher who specializes in
Tech Embodiment & Dress-logics. Her work focuses
on finding new ways in which we could dress the body,
finding new dress-logics. Teaming up with design platform
Droog Design, within their program ‘Reality Tank’ allowed
her to accomplish the design of SOAK.
How would your best friend describe you?
Haha, I think as a sweet, ambitious and headstrong person
I’m also quite calm and perfectionistic.
How do your cross your boundaries?
When I work on a new project and give shape to new
designs, I always try to think of the most absurd version
of the product, something scientifically impossible.
I recently worked for a client from a shoe brand who
wanted to innovate their materials. I started out with the
idea of a shoe as a plant. A plant is a growing organism
and should be nurtured for it to grow. If you disconnect
yourself from reality and base your product on an initially
impossible idea, you will end up creating a much more
innovative product than you might have created if your
first thoughts were too realistic and down to earth.
SOAK is a textile coating that can be applied to sportswear
and changes colour while the wearer is working out. The
colours visualise information of the components of the
wearer’s sweat, and the internal health of the wearer that
is reflected in these micro-fluids.
As the wearer sweats, the applied pattern will change
colour, communicating weather or not the wearer’s sweat
has healthy water/base levels. It warns the wearer when
he’s dehydrated or if the acid levels of the body (caused by
bad diet habits) are too high. The reaction of the coating
varies of colour, with a spectrum between blue, green,
yellow and brown, it colours blue when the wearer is well
hydrated and has a healthy amount of acids in his system.
When the wearer is dehydrated the coating turns yellow
to brown. In example, when you worked out after having
multiple cups of coffee on that day, the coating turns
brown, indicating the body is dehydrated (as result of the
caffeine in this case).
What is your definition of effective work?
I am not against commercial work, like many other
designers. I think it’s very important to create something
that can be beneficial for others too. Thinking about the
consumer and his or her needs is very important to me,
when creating a product. As a “creator” you have the
tools to put things up for discussion, to give different
perspectives and formulate or answer inquiries. I always
see this as my goal, to some how give rise to progress.
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