The initiative combines KITE Creates' and FIBRE's healthcare innovation with Toronto Metropolitan University's design expertise.
Fashion students and healthcare innovators are coming together in a new collaboration that encourages them to share their skills and take wearable healthcare technology to the next level.
The initiative connects KITE Creates and FIBRE with a group of students from Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). It began this week when fashion students from the university came to the KITE Research Institute, where researchers presented innovations such as socks that can measure leg fluid in patients with heart issues and leggings that integrate functional electrical stimulation to stimulate muscles.
“It’s a great holistic opportunity for everyone to learn from each other: for the fashion students to find out what KITE is doing on the medical wearable side in research, and for the PhD candidates and postdoc researchers to realize that fashion isn’t just about aesthetics, but is integral to the design of wearable tech in apparel,” says Helen Weston, a research associate for FIBRE and KITE Creates who created the initiative with Caron Phinney, an assistant professor in design, diversity and technology at Toronto Metropolitan University.
The work is part of a human-centred design course led by Phinney. This partnership is a chance for students to get real-world experience with the subject, she says. “Through this, they’re learning what human-centred design means for them as designers, and how to expand their knowledge beyond traditional fashion pathways to include more people, including those on the margins.”
At the next event in this program, the students will hear from entrepreneurs from the KITE Creators Circle's first cohort who are working on fashion-related projects. Those are Mellissa Kuforiji, who created Baby Zips, an accessible clothing line for children; Sharica Rogers, who made Pump Pockets, clothes for kids with built-in pockets for insulin pumps or receivers; and Parisa Agahi, who made Tression, a line of luxury compression clothing. KITE trainee Delaram Sadatamin will also present a T-shirt used to monitor sleep apnea.
Kuforiji, like many of the KITE Creators Circle participants, doesn’t have a fashion background. She started Baby Zips when she had a child with a disability and couldn’t find a coat that would fit him. “It was a self-taught journey: I learned how to sew and learned pattern-making myself,” she says. She’s excited to share her journey with the students, including how she is expanding her line after hearing about many older people who need her product. “It’s important for these students to know that the demand is high for these kinds of products,” she says.
The final part of the collaboration is for the TMU students to present prototypes and suggestions for the products they have seen through KITE. Knowing so many of the healthcare innovators in the KITE ecosystem were self-taught, like Kuforiji, was one reason Weston thought this collaboration would be valuable.
“Because they don’t come from a fashion background – they’ve come to it out of a need to solve a problem – to have the ability to have their product lines workshopped is an amazing experience,” she says. “And for the students, to get to give feedback on design ideas by collaborating with a PhD candidate working in wearables or by speaking to someone who has already developed a product line is a very exciting opportunity.”