Talking about Accessible Design with Lucy Jones
For this interview, designer Lucy Jones and Anna Burckhardt, a curatorial assistant in MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design, corresponded about Jones’s work, accessible design, and how fashion can “be a tool and platform for change.” Jones’s Seated Design is now on view in the 2019 Milan Triennale Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival, organized by Paola Antonelli, senior curator of Architecture and Design and director of Research and Development at MoMA. In 2017, Antonelli commissioned Jones to make a prototype of tights for wheelchair users, which was featured in Items: Is Fashion Modern?
Anna Burckhardt: Can you tell us a bit about your work?
Lucy Jones: I guess, like most work, it is a constant work in progress. I would say I have an obsession with discovery, invention, and problem-solving. In my eyes, everything can be a design puzzle. I am very much a people person and have an innate desire to listen to people’s stories and backgrounds and compare them to my own. My work is a balance of learning from those whose experiences may be completely different from what I know, dissecting their lifestyles and habits, and observing opportunities for design intervention. As a result, my design process can be emotional. I feel a great responsibility to remain critical throughout, yet mindful of the whimsical blunders that occur along the way.
What is Seated Design, and what motivated you to create it? Can you tell us about some of the differences between designing for a body that is seated as opposed to standing?
Seated Design originated from a conversation with a family member who has cerebral palsy. Before our conversation, I had not considered the various needs or challenges that people with disabilities may encounter in the realm of fashion and style. During my studies in fashion design and when researching my senior thesis, I started working with a [woman] who uses a wheelchair, and this was when we started talking about some of the tailoring and fitting issues for the seated form.
In fashion design we traditionally use a standing body as a guide to create garments. We use a standing mannequin, our fit-models are standing, and our patterns are flat-designed for a standing position. Sleeves and leg blocks are designed completely straight. But as soon as you start designing for the seated body many measurements get disrupted. For example, observe what happens to your trousers when you sit down. Your pelvis tilts forward, the back of the trousers around the buttocks drops, fabric tightens over your kneecaps, and the front of the trouser leg is suddenly revealing your ankle. This simple observation was where I began, in particular with my study of the arm-crease and the knee-bend.
In the seated position, there tends to be excess fabric around the crotch, elbow crease, at the knee-bend, and so on. My argument is that we can shift proportions to create better fitting and more visually pleasing garments by removing excess fabric from some areas and increasing fabric in others, such as the buttocks and neckline.
Your Seated Pantyhose (2017) commission for Items is designed for people with limited mobility, particularly wheelchair users. Why did you decide to redesign tights? What is the most important thing you learned through the process of designing this prototype? How did it inform your subsequent work?
When the curatorial team and I shortlisted items that we felt were in need of a redesign, tights seemed to present the most challenges and strictest design parameters.
Allen Gant developed one of the first tights prototypes in 1953. His wife was pregnant, and the garter belt and stockings that women wore at that time were too uncomfortable and cumbersome for her. Tights therefore originated out of a need for a new and better design. However, tights are still somewhat tricky to get on and off and despite their stretchiness they can cause some issues for the seated body. With a garment worn so close to the skin, small wrinkles or pinching elastic, especially in waistbands, could cause wearers with certain disabilities some harm. So I altered the fit and proportion, including raising the back waistband four inches higher than the front to accommodate the pelvis proportions in a seated position, and I added a thicker yarn around the thighs and buttocks to eliminate wrinkles. The most important thing I learned during the tights redesign was how more fabric treatments and applications could be used in ways that could benefit the health of the wearer.
For example, when I was doing research for Seated Pantyhose I discovered infrared dots that could be added into garments. These dots work with your body temperature to gently generate warmth. So I incorporated these dots into the pantyhose in a visually pleasing manner, following the anatomy of the foot and the Achilles tendon to, in theory, increase blood circulation. Maintaining blood supply to the skin is especially important for those who are seated or in a position for long durations of time to reduce risk of skin breakdown. The dots doubled as grips, which was a pleasant surprise. I colored the dots to match the style of the tights. The concept of utilizing the dots (which could be seen as a superficial design application) for a beneficial purpose intrigued me and has opened many doors for me since.
Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival explores our connections to the natural environment and the concept of restorative design, which seeks to repair our relationship with nature. How does your work reflect the principles of restorative design?
Considering disability in all aspects of creation is not a frequent practice in design. Can we design a world that is truly accessible? Accessibility can be so beautiful and widely beneficial.
In my work, disability is not segregated, it is integrated. Our viewpoints on accessibility are too narrow and prescribed, and I am constantly asking why we continue to fail with accessibility requirements despite the laws in place. I feel, perhaps, that there are two reasons why. First is the lack of inclusion of people with disabilities in design and in society. Second is habit. When we are children, we learn from our teachers and elders — we absorb everything. It is wonderful to inherit traditions and to carry forward symbols of previous generations, but it is not wonderful to mindlessly carry forward stereotypes. The teaching and repair has to continue throughout our lives. Particularly within fashion, I believe we must continually return to the basic question of why we do what we do and challenge that. Is it because it is necessary and there is no alternative, or are there many other opportunities and ways we can evolve?
Central to your work is the idea that design should be for everyone. How can fashion be a powerful medium for this?
Precisely by flipping the design process on its head. If you start with accessibility at the core of and not as an afterthought to design, it will inherently include more people.
Fashion is a powerful medium, because it touches everyone. We don’t all read the same books, watch the same television shows, or visit the same places, but almost all of us wear clothes! Whether you say you are interested in fashion or not, you are dressed and you choose what to wear. Because it is so intimately a part of our lives, fashion is a nonverbal language that can be understood by all. It can therefore be a tool and platform for change.
What are your hopes for the future of fashion? How can it become more accessible and sustainable?
I think we can learn a lot from living in someone else’s shoes. I hope that more people in the future will be more aware of other people’s experiences and of the lifecycle of our clothes. I feel we can do so much good as a society if we start realizing the larger part we play in an ecosystem and how each part is interrelated.
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The XXII Triennale di Milano, Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival, is on view through September 1, 2019.
