Call for Participation: 3lectromode - DIY Wearables

3lectromode is looking for designers/programmers interested in doing
an internship to co-develop future D-I-Y projects. In particular, we are
looking for fashion designers skilled in pattern making with an interest
in textile design and programmers interested in further developing the
Arduino platform for wearables. Respond before May 1 w/ cv & portfolio.

Founded and directed by designer-artist Valérie Lamontagne,
3lectromode holds the vision of innovating in the field of wearables by
combining technology with customizable prêt-â-porter fashion. We aim to
inspire a future where wearables are democratized, aestheticized, and
performative.

We are a small design group interested in developing accessible
wearables which combine D-I-Y technology with current fashion research.
We are fascinated with the potential for technology to create new
modalities of interaction between the body and its environment, and are
interested in the performative potential of technology.
Key to our design ethos is a to create a library of open sourced tools
which can be used easily by anyone.

We develop wearables which we hope will be meaningful to the wearers
by enriching everyday experiences with an awareness of both ourselves
and the world around us. We see our work as creating a further
connection between humans and the world at large of machines,
information patterns, environmental data, and organic material.
Associate designer at 3lectromode is Magalie Coulombe-Noël, a
trained fashion designer and technologist. Fellow collaborators include:
Elio Bidinost, physical computing expert; Claudine Lamothe, web
programmer and technologist.
3lectromode was founded in 2010 and is located in Montréal, Canada.

Contact: valerie@3lectromode.com

3lectromode.com: democratized, aestheticized, performative wearables.

so, please, what exactly is your call to participation?

sounds interesting, but not sure where the participation from others comes in?

Sounds indeed interesting, I'd guess loads of people here could also come up with loads of ideas.

Clothes, worn by different people, interacting with each other would be a suggestion from me.

A t-shirt responding to sound/music would be another.

I hope democratized won't mean the clothes you wear do nothing if 6 out of 10 people
decide yours shouldn't. :grin:

But, as others already asked, what... are you looking for in a participant ?

all the good stuff is in Canada. =/

I want to work at a place like this in the US.

So, have made the call a bit more clear :slight_smile:

We are looking for designers/programmers interested in doing an internship
to co-develop future D-I-Y projects. In particular, we are looking for fashion
designers skilled in pattern making with an interest in textile design and
programmers interested in further developing the Arduino platform for wearables.
Respond before May 1 w/ cv & portfolio.

/Valérie

Valérie,

does internship mean in this context "work for free" or is this an environment where work and craftsmanship is valued and adequately remunerated?

Korman

Exactly.. what you are asking for in terms of "Interns" are what are normally high-paying professions... in consideration that the fashion world places values of hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single outfit, these "interns" of yours (professions which take years to master) are being compensated, and commensurately, right?

You are asking for highly skilled professionals- but if these "interns" envision, design, and build "your" creations, whose name and credit will be on it? By defining that professional as an Intern, you from the outset make it sound rather..sketchy.

There is a level of experience that no longer puts a person in the "Intern" category, and I think you may have a hard time getting a worthwhile respondant who isn't expecting to be more than an "Intern".. in the fashion world, it's all about two things: Name and Money. If defined as an "intern" your prospective applicant might reasonably expect to see neither. It's maybe just a name thing, but if that's the case then you really ought to make clear that you are looking for a Partner, rather than an Intern.

The skillsets you want won't likely be had for free, that's all..

@focalist... Depends on where you live and how you read "skilled" (the term used by OP).
Where I live, it is quite common to do unpaid/low paid internships (yes, in plural) for a few months at a time - either as part of an education or immediately following one. There
are just too many highly skilled students and qualified fashion designers around and
simply not enough jobs. Only after a couple of years doing that (for some it is easier than
for others) are you considered a professional (i.e. more than just skilled in how to use the
tools and how to deal with the various types of fabric).

I'm sure the world of programming is completely different and I'm sure that there are places
in the world where this doesn't hold to be true, but here (Scandinavia) it is really nothing out
of the extraordinary...

-tweakieDee

tweakieDee:
Where I live it is quite common to do unpaid/low paid internships for a few months at a
time (yes, in plural) - either as part of your education or immediately following one. There
are just too many highly skilled students and fully educated fashion designers around and
simply not enough jobs.

Not with computers or electronics. If you can do something useful, it's worth being paid properly, and if you can't, you're no big help. I know there are many graduates from fashion school with - lets say - a very broad range of skills of uncertain quality. For those, it might be appealing to be accepted for some time in a workshop for free so that they can learn the trade and become useful. But providing useful work for no reward is just immoral and stupid. If some companies exploit this, good for them, but they shouldn't expect this to work for other domains too.

On the other hand, fashion design is full of women interested in how they look and electronics is more a male domain full of marginally sociable geeks. There might be some incentive there...

Korman

@Korman:
On a very general level I think you and I are talking about two very different things:

  • you are talking about graduates - whereas I am primarily talking about people doing short term internships - either as part of their education or immediately following their graduation (a situation where you have no experience at all and find yourself to be having trouble getting a job - to me, something very familiar)
  • you are basing your observations on some extremely rigid structures: one is either useful or useless, either woman and social or anti-social and man, either into computers and electronics or without skills to work with these things...

IMHO these structures just don't have any bearing within a cross-disciplinary field such as wearables, where few can do it all and where training and the continued development of skills, are all implicit in the work being done.

However, I like the "unionist" approach you are taking and of course workers (any kind - male or female) should fight for the best possible wages, work conditions, rights etc. but really, atm we are judging without knowing (i.e. what is implied in the "internship" has yet to be explained by OP and is probably not even negotiated here on this forum?)

Hi -

Just to clarify. I'm mostly interested in connecting with w/ a growing pool of creative people working in fashion and engineering with an interest in wearables. And I'm always happy to share outcomes and opportunities that making exciting work can offer! Contact me directly if your want more information about how the details of the internship. Kind regards, valérie