Pockets full of wellness: E-textiles pockets to empower young women to discreetly recognise and manage their stress and mental wellbeing

This paper explores relationships between body, clothing and stress through e-textile wearables. It draws upon Attachment Theory and historic symbolism of women’s pockets as a secret form of self-empowerment. It investigates design-practice through prototyping as a methodology for detecting sub-conscious stress. The research gap identifies young women’s desire to manage their mental wellbeing privately and recognises opportunities to address this through e-textiles monitoring, harnessing the universality of pockets as everyday articles.<br/> It examines how unnoticed gestures of putting hands in pockets could offer an unobtrusive method for recognising and managing early indications of in-the-moment stress in non-clinical settings and offer a low-cost, accessible, alternative to existing smart wearable technologies. Two prototypes were created and evaluated in focus groups using a Technology Acceptance Model. Outcomes revealed that the e-textiles pockets were effective in discreetly managing wellbeing and beneficial in encouraging wider discussions around empowering women to take responsibility for personal wellbeing.<br/>