Playable Fashion

Playable Fashion is an education program for youth exploring the intersections between Fashion, Technology and Gaming. Students learn concepts and techniques behind each subject, combining learnings to create their own digital games and wearable controllers inspired by their personal narratives. Playable Fashion introduces students to concepts core to technology and computational thinking in an accessible and fun way. Experiences learned from Playable Fashion give youth the comfort level to continue exploring technology, and their voice in it, as creators.

Playable Fashion, developed by Eyebeam alumni Kaho Abe and Ramsey Nasser, is an extension of their practice, passion and professional history in game design, education, coding, and fashion design. Since its inception in 2013, Playable Fashion has expanded from a stand-alone after school program to a set of curricula which has been delivered in various environments including integration into a four year long public school computer science program.

Playable Fashion has served over 260 under-resourced youth through after-school programs at Eyebeam and hands-on workshops throughout the city at alternative learning spaces like New York Hall of Science, Bronx Museum, NYC Parks Resource Centers, CSNYC (CS4All) and Code Liberation.  NYC public school partners include Academy of Innovative Technology (Brooklyn), Satellite Academy (Manhattan), and Hudson High School of Learning Technologies (Manhattan).

Through a series of nine modules, students develop core skills to empower them as makers and not just passive consumers of the technology that surrounds them on a daily basis. Playable Fashion does this by exploring:

• Game Design – Students learn the principles and workflows involved in conceptualizing and creating a digital interactive game. They also learn the language and techniques behind designing games.
• Technology – Students learn how to think abstractly about code and electronics, while building the software and hardware needed to realize their projects.
• Fashion – Students become familiar with the field of wearable electronics. They learn about the materials used for fabrication and learn the skills necessary to design and make their own game controlling wearables.

Eyebeam and Playable Fashion would like to thank and acknowledge the support from our funders The Pinkerton Foundation, Capital One and from National Writing Project’s Educator Innovator Initiative and the LRNG Innovation Challenge, part of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and John Legend’s Show Me Campaign.