New Model for Fashion Fabrication & Research

Amanda Parkes

As a biomedia designer and fashion technologist, Amanda Parkes stands at the intersection of new media, textiles, and fashion. After completing her BA in art history and BS in mechanical engineering (product design) at Stanford, Parkes dedicated her career to discovering new ways that digital technology and ‘smart materials’ affect everyday lives. Before directing her skills towards fashion, she developed education science exhibits for notable museums such as the Exploratorium in San Francisco and Science Museum in London. She is the co-curator of Regeneration, an exhibition that opened in October 2012 at the New York Hall of Science featuring contemporary interactive art on themes of art, science, and cultural sustainability. As founder of Skinteractive Studios in Brooklyn, New York, Parkes researches and develops new high-tech textiles projects for fashion applications. She is also CTO of Manufacture NY, a Brooklyn-based fashion-tech incubator and factory for local emerging brands and designers. Parkes earned her PhD in tangible media from the MIT Media Lab and is currently a visiting scientist at the esteemed American research university.