Speculative sewing: Researching, reconstructing, and re-imagining wearable technoscience

Abstract

This article contributes to Science and Technology Studies (STS) literatures on 'making and doing' by describing and analysing the practice of researching, reconstructing, and reimagining archival clothing patent data. It combines feminist speculation and reconstruction practices into what I term 'speculative sewing'. This involves stitching data, theory and fabric into inventions described in patents and analysing them as three-dimensional arguments. In the case here, of 1890s British women's convertible cycle wear, I examine how inventors used new forms of clothing to challenge socio-political restrictions on women's bodies in public space and help them make alternate claims to rights and entitlements. I argue that translating text and images into wearable data renders lesser-known technoscience stories visible and (more) knowable and transforms clothing (back) into material matters of public concern.

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