Wallpaper designed by 5.5 designers. Consumers can customise their wallpaper in a playful way, this makes it personal to them, which can be seen as emotional design, they have a personal connection to it.
"This designable future, so devoid of obsolescence, waste and serial dissatisfactions, is filled only with attachment, evolution and mutual growth. A revolutionary consumer reality is born, catalysed by new and provocative genres of emotionally durable objects and experiences that are designed for empathy."
I feel this quote sums up where design should be heading, and I think products based on the idea of emotional design are already available in other product markets, such as interiors. However I think it is a challenge to apply this thinking to the fashion industry where everything is fast, trend led, and the low cost of products means that consumers form absolutely no emotional attachment to clothing that they wear once, or never, and then discard. How can we change consumers way of thinking, at the same time bringing fashion into the realm of sustainability?
The Tuberculosis Analogy
The tuberculosis virus continually multiplies and grows, and if left untreated will wipe out all absorbable resources until it has no more hosts to migrate to, it consumes itself to death. Can human behaviour be compared to this virus? We are a race of dissatisfied consumers 'who never know the worth of water until the well is dry'. As we consume, the planets natural reserves are deteriorating rapidly, will this eventually lead to a barren, spent world?
An appropriate quote from The Matrix:
"I'd like to share a revelation i had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multipy until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organsim on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure."
