— 767 773 Celebration & Contemplation, 10th International Conference on Design & Emotion 27 — 30 September 2016, Amsterdam Introduction Some time ago, I co-incidentally happened to take part in a Tibetan singing bowl1 session. For the first time, I was not hearing music with my ears only, but was experiencing it as a vibration throughout my entire body. This outstanding experience left a deep impression on me. It made me wonder about how frequencies resonate with the body and it had become the starting point of my graduation project in fashion design. I tried to imagine for one moment: if I could see sound, what shape and colour would it then be? In this writing, I will first elaborate on what sound actually is, on how it relates to colour and to the human body. This will form the core of the concept and will then be translated into ingredients for an interactive womenswear collection “Beings of Frequency”, further referred as The Collection. The shape of sound Sound vibration is so subtle, that it cannot be perceived by the human eyes. However, it is a delicate, perfect balance between frequencies that keeps us alive and forms the basis of all the natural cycles that we see around us. There is a common misconception of what sound really is. It is believed, that sound is a wave and it ‘wiggles’ through the air from one point to the other just like that. Sound researcher, Professor John Stuart Reid (2009), has done deep studies in the shape of sound and states that sound can rather be described as a rapidly expanding bubble, having the ‘sonic event’ in the middle of it (for example from vibrating vocal cords of a human). Starting at that core, different densities of air are created by vibration and travel in all directions at the same time creating a sphere-like shape. Sound can only be made visible to the human eye when exposed to matter. The act of making sound visible is called Cymatics2. Every sound creates a unique geometrical structure in air densities from the core outwards, looking very much like a mandala3 if you would slice the sonic bubble in half (Figure 1). Reid has developed a special scientific device, called the CymaScope. With help of a digital camera, the patterns are captured that appear in ultra-pure water that is exposed to sound vibrations. This sound visualization is called a Cyma Glyph and is used as the aesthetic base of The Collection and is interpreted and applied in the clothing in various ways and scales (Figure 2-6). Abstract “Beings of Fequency” is a bachelor graduation project, currently being developed in the form of a collection in fashion design. In the collection, parallels are being laid between the seven musical notes, the seven colours of the rainbow and the the seven main energy centers of the human body, the so called chakra’s. Before seeing the collection, each visitor will get the chance to scan their chakra status via a GDV scan developed by Dr. Korotkov, PhD and according to that, a sound will be designed containing mainly the notes that are ought to resonate with their “weaker” chakras. While the music is playing, by use of incorporated micro-processors, mini-microphones and coloured LEDs, the collection will give the viewer a real-time sound & light therapy which is believed to charge the energy of the corresponding chakra’s; operating as a resonant, interactive mechanism. The collection consists out of seven outfits, each representing one of the chakras. Keywords Fashion, Chakra, Colour, Sound, Interaction Beings of frequency. In-progress graduation project in fashion design - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Linda Plaude1 lindaplaude@live.nl 1Amsterdam Fashion Institute, the Netherlands - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1 A musical instrument made of metal, dating back from the pre-Buddhist Tibetan Bon culture. It is a type of bell that is rather placed in a standing posit