Logo from the Salford & RMIT Fashion Facebook page
As I type this around 60 students at University of Salford and about the same number at RMIT in Melbourne, Australia are coming to the end of a 12 hour fashion design-and-make collaboration and putting the finishing touches to their garments. The collaboration came out of discussion at Salford’s Media, Digital Technology & the Creative Economy Steering Group and was the brainchild of Bashir Aswat (Fashion, Art & Design School) and Marianne Patera (Computing, Science & Engineering) who drove the whole project from the start.
The fashion groups in Salford and Melbourne both sent sealed bags of materials to each other in advance of
Bashir at #12hrfashion
the event, students at the receiving end had no idea what they were being sent ahead of the start of the 12 hour marathon. All student groups were linked to matching groups at the other side of the world by social networks and mobile devices. Twitter, Facebook, Skype, Bambuser, Ustream have all been used so that students could communicate right through the process. At each end a big screen displayed a live video overview of activity at the other side of the world.
I was there for the first couple of hours at Salford and have been following online since then – the event has been amazing! The buzz in the room as preparations were made for the 9pm start was really infectious, excited students and staff distributing mystery parcels sent from Melbourne – many with friendly messages on from their counterparts in Australia.
@samrecordsmusic is carrying out an MSc project on user generated content and motivation, he’s covering this as a case study and was helping out with some of the tech on the night.
Organising Thoughts 