Let’s face it. I work in a a career that is predominately run by men. Sure, there are a good number of women that work in technology-related careers, but how many CTOs do you know that are women? The number is small. I wanted to add “surprisingly” to that small, but I couldn’t. It’s an obvious fact. Women just aren’t as visible in this scene. So, how do we change that? We can’t bribe girls to take the career. If they’re driven by money they’ll probably rather marry a rich man who’s on his death bed, then take advanced science courses. Being serious, the logical solution is making technology appealing to girls at a young age, so that they will be encouraged to pursue a career in it later in life.
According to a study done by the AAUW, i stereotypes about appropriate careers for girls, a lack of female role models and the absence of basic career information dampened girls’ interest in technology-related careers. (1998) So how do we remedy this? One women is coming forward with a rather interesting solution.
Diana Eng a self proclaimed fashion geek, and former project runway contestant, has come up with a pretty remarkable way to blend the typical girl infused world of fashion with the futuristic world of technology. Enter fairytalefashion.org.
“Fairytale Fashion is a program that combines fairytales and fashion to introduce young girls to technology. Girls will be asked to make-believe they are fashion designers in a fairytale and imagine what magical fashions they would create. These may be fashions that change color, transform, have blooming flowers and moving patterns. The magical fashion design ideas will be evaluated and created in real life using technology such as muscle wire, inflatables, thermochromatic ink, microcontrollers, conductive thread and 3-d printing. The working fairytale fashions and the technology behind them will be documented on the FairytaleFashion.com website to show girls how technology can be used to make make-believe a reality. “
I had the pleasure of attending the launch of the program where the first of such “fairytale designs” was previewed. The dress below is much cooler than it looks, as I failed to capture much of its magic with my camera lens. The bodice is littered with flashing lights, the bottom of the dress inflates ( with no power cord dragging!), and the “cape” is headed up by large bulbous LED finishings. It was literally a fairytale come true to the 3, 11 year old girls that designed it.
If you have a daughter who would love to have their fairytale fashion become reality you can submit their idea to Diana.She will be selecting several girls to have their own fashion impossibilities become reality with the help of modern advanced technology.
