Beijing Project n.15 Yanzi 燕子

Yanzi 燕子 is an independent, self-taught designer and artist whose main interests are weaving techniques, fabrics and unexpected clothing design. From the moment she expressed an interest in the Social Sensibility programme, her attention turned to the work suits at Bernard Controls. She analysed the existing garments and interviewed all the workers about the features of their work clothes and how they would like to change, improve or adapt them to feel better.

After a first round of interviews she made a sample suit combining a male and a female prototype in two halves, then went back to discuss it with the workers, and went on to design the final male and female samples. Beyond the relationship built with the workers, what proved interesting is that all the parameters to discuss – colour, size, pockets, details – turned out to be important indicators of the factory’s complex production system, not just features of clothing.

Production lines optimised according to 5S principles would choose spotless white suits, because the very fact that they stay clean during work would show an almost perfect application of the 5S management system; dark suits, blue or black, would signal that production is far from optimised. The number of pockets defines the relationship with tools and the degree of organisation of the work: many pockets suggest that tools are carried and kept in pockets instead of being returned to their place on the workstation’s tool board.

Through this apparently simple but brilliant project we learn the symbolic and complex role of the work suit in the factory, and the subtle levels of communication and interaction that design and colour touch when they enter a working context.