Can a Sensor-Laden Hoodie Protect Vulnerable Communities?
VISION: Safeguard communities of color against violence through a network-linked fashion line of hoodies.
Team: Mika Campbell, Grace Burch, Abigail Gordon, Savannah Adams
School: Spelman College
When 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed after buying Skittles at a 7-11 store in Florida, he was wearing a hoodie. Inspired by the movement following Martin’s murder to reclaim the hoodie as a symbol of pride and solidarity in the Black community, students from Spelman College envisioned how this garment could look through an Afro-futurist and biological lens. Their speculative project Subversive: Biofashion for Black Lives aims to destigmatize the hoodie while also imbuing it with features to create community and add protection.
The futurist garment they designed includes wearable sensors that collect body vitals and geographic data. Each hoodie links to a network of trusted peers that allows community members to monitor, communicate, and respond when a wearer is in danger. For the hoodie’s outer layer, the team experimented with silk-leather—a new material that is rip, puncture, and water resistant. For the inner layer, they tried oobleck, a non-Newtonian fluid made of water and starch that hardens when hit.
“We envision our design existing as an embodiment of historically rooted community connectivity. In the same way that the grapevine has been used to share community networks around sentiment, threat, and wellbeing, this hoodie would allow for members of the community to share and propagate data that would allow support networks to engage as needed,” the Spelman team said.
