For many, fashion is their first foray into design. We learn as children how to dress and accessorize to design ourselves, slipping on mom’s heels to practice being an adult through adornment.
Additionally, fashion and design are intrinsically linked in that what we wear affects the built world, either through trends or products created to accommodate fashion—think fainting beds and corsets. As a whole, it’s nearly impossible to divorce fashion from interiors.
That marriage is only increasing with technology. As the wearable technology trend continues to mature, it is being incorporated into interiors in innovative, new ways. Even now, I'm sure many readers can understand the frustration of sitting to do work and being incapable of finding a plug. As technology grows and expands into our everyday spaces, both fashion and interior design must flow with the advancements.
For several semesters during my Masters of Decorative Art History and Theory program at Parsons, I taught a Global Issues in Design course for seniors. The mixed-discipline course asked students to take the many design problems we’re up against—sustainability, sweatshops, appropriation, etc.—into consideration with their own work. Semester after semester, I personally learned so much as students found new ways that fashion and design inform each other. Why should they be happy with screens on their phones when clothes and armchairs could so easily be fitted with smart technology?
If spider silk could be studied for its durability, what applications could it be used in fashion and high-traffic interiors? What does it mean when a fashion house takes its aesthetic into the home?
With our Runway issue, we similarly questioned the ways in which fashion and product design intertwine, from forecasting fashion trends in Happenings (p. 16) to the evolution of the wearable tech trend in Field Notes (p. 18). Every day the two learn from each other, and shape our environments for the better.
Kadie Yale | Editor in Chief
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