Lucy McRae - Skin Probe & Frisson

La recherche en textile et habillement futuriste - chez Philips design - donne un sérieux coup de vieux aux robes en plaques métalliques de Paco Rabanne ; notamment avec les créations de Lucy McRae, dont le travail s'enrichit des apports de stylistes, ingénieurs en textile, modélistes électroniques.
Selon elle, la technologie devra être plus qu'intelligente : elle devrait être sensitive, c'est-à-dire capable de livrer des feedbacks psycho-sensoriels (via des messages subliminaux) et des stimuli indirects tels que le toucher ou la sensation. Aussi voit-elle la peau comme une merveilleuse enveloppe sensorielle : un réseau électronique, une barrière protectrice, un régulateur de température, dont la technologie peut exploiter et mettre en lumière les interactions avec l'environnement.
D'où ces justaucorps de vers luisants, textiles scintillants, fées clochettes illuminées de mille feux, surfaces sensitives et changeantes selon les influences ambiantes : une pure merveille vestimentaire qui n'a pas besoin de stromboscope pour chatoyer dans l'ombre du dancefloor !





Lucy McRae is a "Body Architect." Her work explores the intertwining of fashion, architecture and the human body. She's currently focusing on the body's reaction to and interaction with its environment at Philips Design in Eindhoven.

Her research is part of a programme that works 15 years ahead and identifies trends before they hit the mainstream.

Her latest project, SKIN Probe investigates the human skin, and how body products should be designed – be they garments, electronics or furniture. She developed it with a team made of people coming from different disciplines: a fashion designer, a textile engineer, a garment technologist, etc.

She listed a few phenomenons relevant to her research:
- Textile automation (clothing tailored just for you while you wait; DNA in your shoes);
- Health/Wellness (the need to relax for a society that passed from 5 working days per week to 7 thanks to glorious gadgets such as the Blackberry);
- Information overload (techno clutter still in search of the magical charger);
- miniaturizing and sensing;
- etc.

In her view, technology should be much more than just intelligent: it should be sensitive, thus able to give psycho-sensorial feedbacks (a subliminal message) and indirect response (touch and feel). She sees skin as a wonderful sensor: it's an electronic network, a protection barrier, a temperature regulator, etc.

McRae also mentionned a EU project she's currently working on. It's called Stella and deals with stretcheable electronics, the advent of nano-scale sensors and how a combination of these two could allow our senses to become some kind of jewelry or a tattoo....