Progetto europeo

In 2023, the World Health Organization estimated that 1.3 billion people live with significant disabilities—around 16% of the global population. In response to the limitations of conventional assistive devices, a new collaborative and user-centered approach is emerging within fablabs: co-design. This methodology brings together users, designers, therapists, and communities to co-develop personalized, effective, and replicable solutions using digital fabrication technologies.

Within this context, SeWith was born—an EU-funded project led by OpenDot (Milan), Humanlab by APAJH 44, and the association PiNG (Nantes). Its goal is to explore the potential of textile co-design by developing adaptive garments and accessories with and for people with disabilities.

SeWith promotes inclusion in the fashion world through digital fabrication, developing functional and aesthetically pleasing clothing for people with disabilities. The project explores new technologies for personalized production, allowing users to actively participate in the design of their own clothes. OpenDot, with its co-design approach, helps transform fashion into a more equitable and accessible field, breaking down barriers and redefining the boundaries between industry, craftsmanship, and innovation.

For us, practicing co-design in fablabs means moving beyond individual initiative and DIY solutions. It’s about developing collaboratively tested solutions that are openly documented, easily replicable, and financially accessible.

In addition to fostering the exchange of expertise among the organisations involved in accessible design, the project also aims to build the co-design skills of all participants and to directly address the needs expressed by producing adapted garments during the workshops.

The first event took place in Nantes on May 13 and 14, 2025, at the Hyperlien space. The workshop, which was free and fully accessible, involved 20 participants, alternating training sessions on co-design and transformative design with practical sessions in multidisciplinary teams to design and create the first prototypes of adapted clothing based on specific needs.

The projects launched in Nantes were further developed during the second workshop, held in Milan in October 2025.

Co-design and rapid prototyping for inclusive fashion

From October 14 to 16, 2025, our Foundation's Fab Lab in Milan was transformed into a veritable creative hotspot dedicated to the future of inclusive fashion.

During the second SeWith workshop – Co-design and Rapid Prototype for Inclusive Fashion, designers, pattern makers, and people with disabilities collaborated to co-design and prototype garments designed to meet real needs, from tactile hypersensitivity to temperature regulation and reduced mobility.

OpenDot facilitated:

• lessons on co-design, transformational design, and soft materials
• training on digital manufacturing processes and practical rapid prototyping sessions
• support in project development, from conception to the creation of working prototypes
  
  

Three intense days, lots of ideas and, in the end, five concrete prototypes that demonstrate how design, materials and technology can make fashion more accessible, personal and closer to people with a clear mission: to co-design, not design for but with people with disabilities, creating innovative solutions for real challenges such as tactile and pressure hypersensitivity, thermoregulation difficulties or motor limitations.