GatheredCloths VR
VR Experience + Tangible Textile Installation for Sustainability
GatheredCloths VR is an interactive VR experience to raise awareness about the global textile waste crisis. Through the combination of tangible textile installation and VR immersive storytelling, this piece transforms a pressing global issue into something that can not only be touched and felt, but also experienced.
Collaborative Work | 2024-now My Role: VR Experience Lead Teammates: Mira Musank, Jessy Liu, Gracia Zhao, Jenn Overton, Hao Jiang
Iris Presenting GatheredCloths VR at Hong Kong BODW (Business of Design Week) 12.6.2024
Background
GatheredCloths is an ongoing textile upcycling project initiated by textile artist Mira Musank during the Climate Creative Spring 2021. Mira collects waste fabrics, disassembles them, and re-assembles them into new creative garments through the technique of “ruffling”. Through every disassembling and re-assembling act, those waste fabrics are being given a new life.
Mira’s tangible textile installation serves as a reminder of the value that can be found in what we typically discard. With every iteration, her textile installation keeps growing as more and more people start to mail in their waste fabrics, making this project a channel to engage the local community and spread awareness around the global issue of textile waste as well as overconsumption. (Visit Mira’s website https://www.fafafoom.com/project/gathered-cloths/ to learn more about the GatheredCloths project.)
The Global Textile Waste Crisis
According to Earth.org, the average US consumer throws away 81.5 lbs of clothes every year.
In America alone, an estimated 11.3 million tons of textile waste – equivalent to 85% of all textiles – end up in landfills on a yearly basis,
around 2,150 pieces per second countrywide.
Even more concerning, discarded textiles often pollute cities and coastlines in third-world countries with weaker environmental controls.
“How can we represent this issue in a way that is more visceral to most people?
How can we design experiences that enable people to
rethink their approach to fashion and consumption in order to drive meaningful change?”
From Tangible to VR
Mira reached out to me in mid 2024 about potential collaborations. With her expertise in conceptual art and my experience in XR, we began discussing how to bridge our creative visions. The idea soon became clear to us ——— “GatheredCloths VR”.
GatheredCloths VR an interactive VR experience that immerses participants in a virtual textile waste land, where they are called upon to collect waste fabrics and “reassemble” them into a creative new garment, which mimics the real-life behavior embodied in the actual GatheredCloths textile installation. Through gamification, immersive storytelling and tangible interaction, this VR experience becomes a digital counterpart to the physical installation, not only enhancing the exhibit but also inspiring reflection on upcycling, sustainability, and each individual's role in shaping the future of fashion.
Production Process
We invited illustrators (Jessy Liu, etc.) to draw in VR to create the Gathered Cloths VR assets because this approach allows for
a more expressive and immersive visual language that feels native to virtual reality.
In earlier attempts, using 3D-scanned gathered cloth fabrics resulted in models that, while photorealistic,
lacked the artistic authenticity and emotional impact we wanted to achieve.
Adding interactions (to be updated)….