Creative Design: Graduate

Modular Gambit: A Reconfigurable Chess-Inspired Dress Exploring Playful User Agency

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Abstract

“Modular Gambit” is a reconfigurable, chess inspired wearable sculpture that explores strategy, balance, and user agency through modular design. The garment draws from the intellectual symbolism of chess as well as Eastern aesthetic traditions that view the game as a metaphor for power, duality, and wisdom. Black and white eco friendly materials form digitally rendered motifs that are laser cut and assembled as interchangeable modules. These pieces attach to a fitted bodice and allow the wearer to create unique configurations that echo the adaptability and foresight central to chess. Interactive trials invited participants to reposition motifs using a guided playbook of strategic layouts. Wearers reported a heightened sense of authorship, and testing confirmed durability across repeated reconfigurations. The design contributes to sustainable and participatory fashion by extending garment life through continual transformation and by proposing new avenues for modular surface design and playful co creation. 

Keywords: Transformability, Modular, Cultural, Wearable Sculpture, Tranformability, modularity

How to Cite:

Gam, H. & Aji Silpa, L., (2025) “Modular Gambit: A Reconfigurable Chess-Inspired Dress Exploring Playful User Agency”, International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Conference Proceedings 82(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/itaa.21509