Prior to this studio I did not think much about clothing. The extent to which I thought about clothing was typically limited to whether I thought I would look good in certain clothing and if it was cheap enough for me to afford.
For this project I challenged my daily assumptions about clothing by creating three fictional alternative worlds centered around an idea about clothing. The first world is a world in which we all make our own clothes, out of trash and other items. The second world is a world in which there is no clothing. The third world is a world in which there is a communal system for sharing clothes. The last world is our world - a world in which large corporations make clothing.
I started each world by creating a diagram that maps out the possible effects of such a world. It maps out a few of the possible effects of such a world, such as the effect on daily life, the clothes that we wear, the environment, and the way that the clothes are made. I also created a diagram that started to connect the worlds and the ways that they overlap.
I then created “artifacts” for each world. For the world in which everyone makes their own clothes, I made an outfit out of food wrappers of some of the food that I have consumed. For the world without clothing, I fully painted my body (with the help of a friend). For the world in which there is a communal system for sharing clothes, I created a scene in which I am picking out my clothes for the day from a place called the “Library” and end up wearing clothes that I would not normally wear in this world. For a world in which large corporations make our clothes, I took a few pictures of me wearing some of the current clothing that I have.
I then created a series of small comics describing the daily life of someone within each world. I also created dream journal entries in which a person from each world dreams of/travels to the other worlds in their sleep. The people from each world have brief encounters with the dreamers from other worlds and it creates an echo that runs throughout the project. These dream journal entries are attempting to show the perspectives and biases that one might have from living in their respective world. These dream journals are partially inspired by other pieces of literature that explore the shift to different realities, such as the works of Haruki Murakami (who is my favorite author) and other works like Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels," Lewis Carol's "Alice Through the Looking Glass," Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis." As this is only a first pass at a dream journal, it is still very much biased from my own perspectives. I have started to put pink post-it notes about potential things to think about and I have asked others to leave notes so I could potentially iterate on these dream journal entries. If any of you have time at some point I would love it if you left a little post-it note by any of the entries.
I find the process to be the most important aspect about this project, as it has changed the way that I think about my relationship to clothing in this world. I could spend a lifetime thinking about these worlds and there would be so many unanswered questions. This exercise not only has made me reconsider clothing, but has allowed me to see how clothing connects to all aspects of our lives, including class, politics, culture, etc.
We read several books near the beginning of the semester and one quote that struck me was from a book called “Capitalist Realism” by Mark Fisher. The quote is, “It is harder to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” Before this semester I have enjoyed fictional works, but I did not realize how crucial they are to help imagine new possibilities for our world. I am not suggesting that everyone running around naked will bring an end to capitalism, imperialism, and the patriarchy, but this thought exercise offers a way to break out of the restrictions of our world and question the basic nature of everything around us.
A few of the questions that emerge from this exercise are 1) Would plastic food wrappings replacing the clothing industry be better for the environment or cause more damage? 2) How would having no clothes as social distinguishers change our relationship with class or race? 3) If clothes are not property, would there be no property at all and how would this change our relationship with space? 4) How "free" are we in a world in which large corporations make clothing?
I have attached a blank template of the one that I used if anyone here would be interested in imagining their own world and would like a place to start. Please feel free to download or screenshot it. If this project could inspire even one of you to start to engage in this world building exercise, I would be extremely satisfied.
A World in Which Everyone Makes Their Own Clothes
Artifacts
Artifact #1
Artifact #2
Artifact #3
Artifact #4-5
Dream Journal
4/3/21 (World in Which there is a Communal System for Sharing Clothes):
This is the first time that I dreamed of a new world. I woke up in my bed, but I was covered in a strange gray article of clothing. I found it extremely odd that I was wearing clothes in bed. However, these strange shirt and pants were much softer than any of my food wrapping outfits. I looked around for one of my food wrapping outfits, as I did not to be seen in such an odd outfit. However, all of my outfits were missing. I could not find a single article of clothing besides the strange one that I wad currently wearing. Fine, I will make one now I told myself. I looked for my bin of scrap food wrappings, but it was missing from its usual spot. I searched the whole apartment looking for any wrappings but I could not find it anywhere. Finally I looked in the trash and saw all the wrappings mixed in with all of the non-usable trash and compost. Who would throw away perfectly good food wrappings? I tried to think of a reason that anybody would throw out the wrappings, but could not think of any rational answer. What strange kind of world is this?
I sighed and pulled all the wrapping I could find out of the trash. I delicately washed each food wrapping in the sink and carefully dried them with a towel. I then looked for materials to sew or glue the wrappings together, but I could only find some clear packing tape. This will do for today until I could find some better tools to make clothes. I taped each food wrapping together to create a tank-top type shirt and a pair of pants. The pants were made mostly out of bags for rice and bags for chips. However, for the shirt it was made primarily out of chocolate candy wrappers and instant ramen wrappers. I was embarrassed to wear this outside but there were no other adequate wrappers to use. Who would eat all this food knowing that people would see you wearing this? Perhaps this is why the wrappers were thrown out, but this is still a massive waste.
I walked outside and immediately knew that something was off. I saw a few people wearing the strange grey outfits that I had on when I woke up. I saw many other people wearing colorful outfits that were made out of a similar material to the grey outfits. People started to notice me and started to stare at me. A few people started laughing when they saw me and one person tried taking a photograph of me. I ran away to avoid the attention and found an area that was less crowded.
I saw a man in a yellow outfit and asked him where he got the material for his outfit. He pointed at a building in the distance and I immediately headed over. The building had a sign that said "Library." I did not know what that meant but I went inside. Inside the building was aisles full of these strange outfits. I tried to put on a few different outfits in the first aisle, but they were all too small so I went to a different aisle.
Eventually I found a shirt and pants that I was able to fit into. These clothes were a lot more stretchy than the food wrapping clothes from my world and they were also much more breathable. However, I still had no idea how these outfits were made. I looked very closely at the outfits and it seemed to be made of some string that was woven together. This must have taken forever for someone to weave, I thought to myself.
I changed into the outfit and put my food wrapper outfit on the hanger in its place. I will come back for this outfit later, I thought to myself. An old woman that was also in the aisle gave me a dirty look and I quickly rushed out of the library.
Suddenly I woke up.
4/4/21 (World Without Clothes):
At first I was not sure if I was still dreaming. I was in my bed without any clothes. This is perfectly normal as I never wear my clothing to bed. I got out of bed and went to pick out an outfit from my closet. However, to my shock my closet had completely disappeared. I searched the rest of my apartment and my other closets had no disappeared, but none of them had any of my clothes.
I then searched for any food wrappings that I could use to make an outfit. I could not find any container that had food wrappings so I checked the garbage bin to see if there were wrappings in there. There were no wrappings that I could use in the trash so I used a few boxes I found and made them into a makeshift outfit. It was by no means the best outfit I have made but it will do for now.
I left the apartment and stepped outside. I saw a few naked people and didn't think much of it. Usually people are naked only while exercising or running but perhaps they are walking home after a workout. However, once people started to notice me, they looked shocked and backed away. One woman screamed and people hurried off. At first I thought it was the poor job I did making this outfit. Then I finally realized what was happening in this world.
Not a single person was wearing any clothing at all. Not any clothing made out of food wrappings or out of any other material. Some of the people had completely bare bodies while other people had drawings covering their bodies.
Suddenly I woke up.
4/5/21 (World in Which Clothing is Made by Large Corporations):
I started off this dream in a strange outfit. The material felt similar to the grey pajamas from two nights ago, but these clothes had a different pattern on them. The pants were black and had three white stripes running down the side of the legs. The shirt was a blue t-shirt that had a yellow check mark running across the chest.
I checked my closet to pick out an outfit for the day, but all of my outfits were replaced by a bunch of new strange outfits. The first thing that struck me was the sheer amount of clothing in the closet. What kind of person needs all of this clothing just for themselves? I wondered if the clothing was for a whole family, but they were all the exact same size. The clothing had strange patterns all over them. I saw a few other articles of clothing with the three stripes on them or the check mark. Other clothes had different symbols on them, such as a large leopard, a guy on a horse with a club in his hand, and a bag covered in the letters "L" and "V." There were little tags on all of the clothes and they had strange names on them like "Adidas," "Nike," and Louis Vuitton." Perhaps these are the names of the people that made the clothes I thought to myself.
I figured that I should try to track down one of these people to figure out how to make one of these outfits. I left the apartment in the black pants and the blue t-shirt. Everyone outside was wearing one of these strange outfits. All of the clothes had some type of logo on them. Some people wore shirt and pants similar to mine, while others wore black jackets with a strange piece of cloth attached to their necks.
Suddenly I saw someone that was also wearing pants with three stripes running down the side. I ran up to her and asked her who made her pants. She looked startled and told me that they were "Adidas" pants. I then asked her who Adidas is and where I could find them. She looked at me confused and pointed down the street. She told me if I walk down this road for ten minutes I will find an Adidas store. I thanked her and started walking down the street.
One of the things I was most shocked by walking down the street was the way that everything was built. I could not comprehend how these buildings were created or how these strange vehicles were made. Some of the buildings looked like they were a hundred floors high, which I could not even comprehend. This must have been a huge group effort I thought to myself. However, I could not even figure out the material that was used for the vehicles or some of the buildings.
Eventually I found a building that had the three stripes on it. I figured that this is where Adidas lives so I entered the building. Inside the buildings were many aisles full of strange clothes and shoes. I was amazed that a single person was able to make all of these items. I saw a person siting behind a counter and I walked over to them. The person asked, "How may I help you?" I asked her, "Are you Adidas?" She gave me a confused look and told me that Adidas was just the name of the store and that her name was Sarah. I was confused. "So where can I find Adidas?" I asked. She gave me a blank state and then told me that Adidas is not a person and it is a company. "A company?" I asked. "What is that?"
I suddenly woke up.
A World in Which There is No Clothing
Artifacts
Body Painting #1
Body Painting #2
Body Painting #3
Body Painting #4
A World in Which There is a Communal System for Sharing Clothes
Artifacts
Morning at the Library
Outfit #1
Outfit #2
Outfit #3
Daily Life
1. I always set my alarm for 7am for work.
2. I am not a morning person so I sometimes snooze my alarm.
3. I take a big stretch in bed and could feel some of my bones crack.
4. I always make my bed because it is great to come back home to a made bed in the evening.
5. We all wear the same pajamas while sleeping - it is the only clothes that we get to keep.
6. I need to eat breakfast - it is the most important meal of the day!
7. After eating I brush my teeth.
8. While brushing my teeth I think about what clothes I would want to wear for the day.
9. I love hot showers in the morning, but sometimes I take cold ones to wake myself up quicker.
10. I leave my place around 8am to go to the library.
11. The library is where all of the day clothes are stored.
12. I walk down the aisles pondering what shirt I want to wear today.
13. This red shirt will do - it is a bit baggy but I left home late today and there isn’t a shirt in my size that I like.
14. I went to the pants aisle to find my pants for the day.
15. These purple pants will go with this red shirt!
16. I took my outfit for the day to the changing room to change into them.
17. There is something cathartic about starting each day with a new piece of clothing - who knows what the day would bring in this outfit!
18. The clothes didn’t look as good on me as I imagined, but I am already running late for work and I will most likely never see these clothes again after today.
19. I put my pajamas in my locker - I have had locker #4196 for as long as I could remember.
20. I start walking over to where I work.
21. Along the way I see a stranger and there is something familiar about him.
22. I suddenly notice his outfit - I remember this dress.
23. This was the exact outfit that I wore on my 18th birthday.
24. We made eye contact and he quickly looked away.
25. I consider stopping him but he disappears around the corner
26. I continue walking and get to my workplace.
27. My job is to repair any clothing that has small tears or damages to them.
28. Some clothing that is quite badly damaged are turned into rags or used for some other purpose.
29. Currently there are even construction sites nearby that have started using clothing as a building material!
30. I start working on my first outfit for the day - it is a pair of children's pants.
31. We repair children's clothes the most as they are always scraping up their clothes and haven't learned to care for their clothes as if it is permanently theirs.
32. For lunch I have two PB&J sandwiches that I packed for myself.
33. I continue mending clothes for the rest of the day.
34. At 3pm I leave and decide that I want to go on a run since it is such nice weather.
35. During my run I see someone running completely naked.
36. I consider also running naked as this outfit I have on is terrible for running, but I decide not to as I didn't want to leave the clothes outside.
37. I run for about a mile and then finally give up as I am drenched in sweat at this point.
38. I go back to the library to return my clothes knowing that I may never see this outfit again.
39. I go to my locker and find my pajamas nice and clean.
40. I put the dirty clothes for the day in the locker where my pajamas once were.
41. I take a shower at the library as I didn't want to get my pajamas sweaty.
42. I get back into my pajamas.
43. I go back home.
44. For dinner I make myself spaghetti with tomato sauce.
45. This is a regular dish of mine when I am by myself, but if I had a guest over I would make something fancier.
46. I wash my dishes.
47. I brush my teeth and wonder which world I will enter tonight.
48. I get into bed and am ready to enter a new world.
A World in Which Large Corporations Make Clothes
Artifacts
Outfit #1
Outfit #2
Outfit #3
Daily Life
1. I always set my alarm for 7am for work.
2. I am not a morning person so I sometimes snooze my alarm.
3. I take a big stretch in bed and could feel some of my bones crack.
4. I always make my bed because it is great to come back home to a made bed in the evening.
5. My pajamas are a matching set that I got at H&M. It consists of a green shirt and blue pants with light polka dots on them.
6. I need to eat breakfast - it is the most important meal of the day!
7. After eating I brush my teeth.
8. I love hot showers in the morning, but sometimes I take cold ones to wake myself up quicker.
9. I change into my clothes for the day - it is Friday so it is casual dress day!
10.The shirt that I wear is a long sleeve T-shirt from Uniqlo and the pants are Adidas sweatpants.
11. I leave my place around 8am to go to work.
12. I take the subway to work and it is a half hour ride to Downtown.
13. There are always crazy people that I see during my commute. After I got off the train I saw a man that was completely naked running down the street.
14. I greet my coworkers and I sit at my desk.
15. I work on forms and spreadsheets and send out emails.
16. I check the time.
17. I work more.
18. I check the time again.
19. I work more.
20. For lunch I have two PB&J sandwiches that I packed for myself.
21. I continue working.
22. Just two more hours. it is 2:27pm.
23. Once 5pm arrives I dash out of the office.
24. I take the train back home.
25. I grab my camera and immediately head back outside.
26. I walk to the river and take pictures of the bridges and different animals that I see.
27. I see a straw cat and I take a photograph of it.
28. I see a person wearing food wrappings as clothes and I try to subtly capture a picture of her.
29. As the sun sets, I take a few more pictures and then head back home.
30. For dinner I make myself spaghetti with tomato sauce.
31. This is a regular dish of mine when I am by myself, but if I had a guest over I would make something fancier.
32. I binge a few episodes of a show on Netflix before I go to sleep.
33. I then check my email again to see if I got any work-related emails.
34. I brush my teeth and wonder which world I will enter tonight.
35. I change into my H&M pajamas.
36. I get into bed and am ready to enter a new world.
Dream Journal
4/3/21 (World in Which there is a Communal System for Sharing Clothes):
This is a new world that I don’t recognize. I am in my bed but I am wearing a grey set of pajamas. Perhaps there is no colored clothing in this world I thought to myself. That would be quite depressing. I opened the closet to choose an outfit for the day but was surprised to see that there was no clothes in sight. I searched the rest of the apartment for clothes, but I could not find a single article of clothing besides the ones that I was wearing. The closets were filled with every household item and some items that I did not even recognize, but I could not find any other shirts, pants, underwear, or socks. I figured that I should go outside anyways, even though I was in pajamas. At least I wouldn't be going out naked I told myself.
I stepped outside and I saw other people wearing the grey pajamas. At least I am not the only one that is wearing one of these outfits outside, I thought to myself. I found it all that we all had matching pajamas. Is this a uniform that we are supposed to wear? However, I also saw people in various outfits of all colors. I saw men in colorful shirts and pants and women in dresses. I also saw men in dresses and nobody seemed to even give them a second glance. In my world, if a men was wearing a dress outside people would have at least glanced twice. I was trying to wrap my head around this world. What is this world based around? And where could I get an outfit besides the pajamas that I am wearing? I decided to follow the direction of the crowd to see what direction they would head. A bunch of people in the grey pajamas all seemed to be heading in the same direction so I followed them.
I walked several blocks, following them at a distance until they all entered a building. I looked at the sign by the front door and all it said was "Library." I assumed that all of these people must have been librarians, but I figured that I would check out the library briefly before trying to find a clothing store to get a colorful outfit. I entered the library and to my surprise there were not any books in sight. Rather than books filling the aisles, there was clothing of all types. I checked the clothes for price tags, but I could not find any on all of the clothing items that I looked at. I looked at the outfits in the first aisle and they all seemed way too small for me. A woman also in the aisle looked at me and said "are you new here." I told her that I was and she said that I would have better luck finding clothes that actually fit me in the fourth or fifth aisle. I thanked her and walked over to the fourth aisle.
The fourth aisle seemed to be completely out of clothing so I checked the fifth aisle. The fifth aisle also did not have much clothing. The only articles of clothing that I saw were jackets and women's outfits. I tried one of the jackets and instantly realized that it was too hot outside to be wearing this outside. I thought back to the men wearing dresses outside and figured that it was socially acceptable for men to wear dresses here. I tried on several outfits and I settled on a yellow dress. I saw some people putting their pajamas in a locker and I asked someone how do I know which locker is mine. He gave me a confused look and told me to check the label on my pajamas. I checked and written on it was small text that said #4195. I found locker $4195 and put my pajamas in the locker. I then left the library to continue exploring this world.
For the most part nobody stared at me in the dress. I felt extremely self-conscious, but I kept telling myself that it is normal here for men to wear dresses. I kept walking around a guy in a red shirt and purple pants staring at me as I walked past him. I suddenly got self-conscious about the dress and hurried away from the man. I wondered if I was wearing the dress wrong or if there was a reason that it was normal for the other men to wear a dress but I couldn't. I reassured myself that it was fine and that other people would have reacted if I was doing sometime wrong. Perhaps that other guy was also a dreamer entering from another world.
Suddenly a guy covered in food wrapping ran up to me. He asked me where I got the outfit that I was wearing and I pointed in the direction of the library. He seemed to not be from this world so I started to explain the locker system, but he ran off before I could finish.
Suddenly I woke up.
4/4/21 (World in Which Everyone Makes Their Own Clothes):
I am in my bed without any clothes. I glance around the room and all of the clothes that I had thrown on the floor earlier had disappeared. I go to my closet to pick out an outfit for the day, but all of my clothes were missing. In their place were strange plastic outfits. I took a closer look and realized that they were made out of food wrappings. "Who would buy such clothing?" I thought to myself. And which company has started making this type of clothing? Perhaps this is some new initiative by H&M to be more sustainable!
I took one of the food wrapping shirts off of the hanger and put it on. The shirt consisted of instant ramen wrappers and egg cartons. It felt strange having the wrappers around my body and they stuck to my skin as I was a little sweaty. I noticed that the egg cartons wrapped specific parts of my body, so if I tried bending backwards, the outfit would awkwardly move with my body. However, this is not a motion that I am typically doing during my day. I found a pair of underwear made out of potato chip bags.. I was afraid that they might be dirty and smell like chips, but they seemed to be very clean and they had a scent of lavender. I put them out and then found pants that were made out of bags used for lettuce and kale. I put on the pants and was surprised how revealing they were in some areas because the bags were quite clear.
I looked in the mirror. This looked more like a strange Halloween costume than a daily outfit. However, I could not find any regular clothing to wear outside. I debated whether I should go outside in this outfit and decided that I have no other choice since there is nothing else to wear.
I stepped outside and I was shocked by the diversity of outfits that people were wearing. Some people had outfits made out of a variety of food wrappers. Some people used the potato skins and banana peels to cover themselves. Others had household items plastered all over their body. "How are these made?" I thought to myself. Is there some company that makes these outfits.
I walked up to someone and asked her who made her outfit. She looked insulted and said, "I did!" I was shocked and asked, "So no company made it?" She gave me a strange looked and asked, "What is a company?" I was about to reply but then she walked away. "What a strange lady," I thought. "How could she not know what a company is?"
Suddenly I woke up.
4/5/21 (World in Which There Are No Clothes):
Today's dream was in a new world that I don’t recognize. I was in my bed but I was completely naked. I looked around my bed for my pajamas to see if they were lying around anywhere, but I could not find them. I went to my closet to pick out clothes for the day, but to my surprise the closet was replaced by a blank wall. I tapped on the wall to see if there was anything hidden behind the wall but it felt very solid. Perhaps the layout for my apartment is different in this world I thought to myself. I walked out of my bedroom and explored the apartment. The layout looked the exact same and I didn’t notice anything that was different. The closet in the hallway of the apartment has not disappeared and I looked inside. My bike and vacuum cleaner were still in the closet but my ironing board was missing. Perhaps this is a world in which ironing boards don’t exist I thought to myself. If so, this is truly a great world. I hate ironing with a passion and if I don’t have to wear button downs to work that would make this world even better.
I knew that I had to explore this world so I frantically searched the entire apartment for something to wear. However, I could not find a single article of clothing anywhere. I could not even find any towels that I could use to cover myself. I tried to figure out what I could use to cover myself up and then all of a sudden it hit me. Using what I have learned from my previous night's dream, I unwrapped and emptied every food container that I could find.
I walked down the street and turned the corner. It was at this point that it finally hit me. It was bustling outside and business men and women were hurrying to work. Tourists were taking pictures of the skyscrapers and people were walking their dogs. However, not a single person was wearing any clothes. I froze and people looked at me in shock. An old lady gasped and a mother covered her child's eyes. I ran back to my apartment and tore the food wrappings off of my body.
I had to hype myself up to go outside without any clothing. "It is normal," I told myself. "This is what everyone does here." I took a deep breath and stepped out of the door to my apartment. As I was walking down the sidewalk, I felt so ashamed of my body. I was ready for people to stare at me and judge how I looked but nobody even glanced at me. Many people were covered in tattoos of various kinds. A few of them were intricate but most of them looked haphazardly applied, as if the tattoo artist had thirty seconds to cover the entire body. (something about sidewalks being softer for bare feet)
I realized that they weren't tattoos once I passed a giant paint shop. The store was bustling with traffic and people were leaving with giant trays of paint. Some people's body paint was still wet and I got some red paint smeared on me as I grazed someone that was speeding past.
I strolled through the different aisles and looked at all the different types of paint. I didn't even know that this many types of paint could possibly exist. Someone walked up to me and said, "If you are looking for the painters, they are in the back." I went to the back of the store and saw a line of people waiting. At the front of the line was a young kid having different dinosaurs painted on him by the painter.
I decided to just buy my own paint rather than wait in line. I got some black, white, and red paint, as well as some brushes. I looked for the cash register but could not find it. I asked someone passing by, "How do I pay for these?" She looked at me perplexed and said, "You don't need to pay for anything here - its just paint!" She walked away and got on line to be painted. I decided to walk out with the paint and nobody stopped me. I ran back to my apartment and tried to figure out what to paint.
Suddenly it came to me. I stood in front of the mirror and tried to picture my outfit from earlier in the day. I painted my legs completely black and then painted three white stripes leading up the sides of my legs. _____. I looked in the mirror one last time. It almost looked as if I was wearing clothes, but it was only paint that was covering my body.
I left my apartment again and stepped back onto the street. People stared at me alarmed and then laughed once they realized that it was just paint. Although it elicited many reactions, I felt much less exposed this way and it almost felt like I was wearing clothes.
Suddenly I woke up.
