Listening to clothing: from sonic fashion archive to sonic fashion library

Abstract

ABSTRACT Fashion is primarily a visual ontology consisting of definitions, theory and methods that are based on visual language. This research revises fashion by approaching it from a different – sonic – perspective wherein sound is considered as an intrinsic part of the wearer’s experience. This research opens new avenues for design thinking with ears rather than eyes. This article briefly introduces the research methods I have used to collect and reflect clothing and fashion from the perspective of listening rather than seeing, sounding rather than showing, and is a form of rethinking and redefining fashion by starting with the statement that dress is sound. The dressed body is considered to be a temporal form that is expressed within the sound. This article presents a study of collecting different sonic expressions of clothing, accessory and footwear; analyzing and grouping the sonic expressions – developing sonic fashion archive into a sonic fashion library.