Expressive Clothing: Understanding Hobbyist-Sewers' Visions for Self-Expression Through Clothing

Researchers have found that hobbyist-sewers seek to create new or adapted clothing designs that foster self-expression through communicating ideas, opinions and emotions. Although existing sewing technologies enable designing new patterns, they focus only on the technical aspects of pattern drafting and not on how information can be expressed. To address this gap, we conducted a qualitative diary study with 12 hobbyist-sewers to better understand how they envision creating expressive clothing. From our analysis of the 24 expressive clothing sketches participants created and participant interviews, we identified i) five distinctive multifaceted approaches participants used for self-expression; and ii) four challenges participants identified from their design process. Informed by these insights, we present a set of implications for the design of future technologies that can better support hobbyist-sewers in designing and creating expressive clothing.