No. 6 (2025): Fashion Technology
Essays

Bodily Pain: Textile Structures of Breath and Repair

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  • Emily Trenton
Emily Trenton
Royal College of Art, The UK
cover of FH issue 6
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/fh-3692

Published 30-05-2026

Keywords

  • sculptural knit,
  • somatic textiles,
  • tender infrastructure,
  • architectures of care,
  • pain bodies

How to Cite

Trenton, E. (2026). Bodily Pain: Textile Structures of Breath and Repair. Fashion Highlight, (6), 70–81. https://doi.org/10.36253/fh-3692

Copyright (c) 2026 Emily Trenton

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This paper investigates sculptural knit as a site of somatic memory and embodied intelligence, proposing tenderness as an infrastructural logic within fashion textile technology. Grounded in lived experiences of chronic pain, sensory difference, and care, the research adopts a practice-based, research-through-design methodology to examine how industrial knitting and weaving can register breath, pain, and protection through material form. Through the case study Pain Bodies, the paper analyzes how knit architectures—through cavities, inlay, and compression—hold, archive, and respond to bodily states that resist linguistic expression. Inlay is articulated as both technique and ethical gesture, embedding memory, grief, and attentiveness directly into textile structure. Drawing on somatics, care ethics, and textile interaction design, the research reframes smart and adaptive textiles not as systems of optimization or spectacle, but as supportive companions for embodied regulation and persistence. By foregrounding inclusive
craft, emotional durability, and responsiveness felt rather than measured, the paper contributes an alternative paradigm for fashion technology. It proposes textile technology as tender infrastructure—capable of listening to the body, sustaining vulnerability, and expanding how responsiveness is understood within future fashion textile systems.

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