{"id":623,"date":"2007-07-11T22:38:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-11T22:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2007\/07\/11\/in_which_i_dream_of_the_catwalk\/"},"modified":"2007-07-11T22:38:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-11T22:38:00","slug":"in_which_i_dream_of_the_catwalk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2007\/07\/11\/in_which_i_dream_of_the_catwalk\/","title":{"rendered":"In which I dream of the catwalk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some of you may already have heard through the London grapevine about the plans Wynn Abbott<\/a> (as director of SciCult<\/a>) and I (as editor of LabLit<\/a>) have cooked up to hold a competition entitled Stripping Off the White Coat<\/strong>. We got some good coverage from the Guardian<\/a> on Tuesday, and now it’s all hands on deck to make this event happens on schedule.<\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/p>\n

\nGood clean fun<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nIt’s all in our press release<\/a>, but basically, Wynn and I got to chatting at one of the Nature Network drink sessions down at The Lamb. Somewhere between our second and third pint, we realized we were both deeply perplexed that the basic design of the white coat has remained unchanged for more than a century, especially considering how radically science itself, to say nothing of society and fashion, has evolved. (OK, at some point the coats did start sporting snaps instead of buttons, but that hardly counts as a couture innovation.) <\/p>\n

\nWhite coats do absolutely nothing to flatter either male and female figures; they are eminently unsexy and their lack of color amplifies every stain. More subversively, they perpetuate boffin stereotypes, while forcing a homogeneous, drab image onto people who tend to be, collectively, diverse, colourful and individual.<\/p>\n

\nSo SciCult and LabLit are challenging fashion designers, from students all the way up to celebs, to reinterpret lab coats for the 21st century. The brief: the coats must still discharge a protective function, but they must also be fun, fresh, sexy and original in design (like, for example, one of the conceptual sketches above, kindly knocked up by Vera Bravo, a talented London freelance illustrator). <\/p>\n

\nWe will make a formal call for designs within the next few months and our panel of judges will make a decision on the shortlist in autumn. If all goes to plan, we will coordinate with London Fashion Week in Spring 2008 and host a gala catwalk event at which the overall winner will announced. In addition to the main prize, we will also give out awards for the best accessories, such as gloves, masks and safety googles.<\/p>\n

\nIf anyone’s interested in getting involved or needs more information, let Wynn or me know!<\/p>\n

\nSo come on, people, pimp my coat! I’m tired of putting on the same old stained, shapeless one every morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of you may already have heard through the London grapevine about the plans Wynn Abbott (as director of SciCult) and I (as editor of LabLit) have cooked up to hold a competition entitled Stripping Off the White Coat. We … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}