Silver Fashion and Travel Accessories Design · 2024
Barebag Series Fashionable Prosthetics
by Ke Zheng and Shuhao Xuanyuan
- A' Design Award 2024 Silver Winner in Fashion and Travel Accessories Design
- Awarded April 15, 2024
- CLIENT: BareBag
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 187,082
- Verification code 9D739E358F · Verify this award
About Barebag Series Fashionable Prosthetics
BareBag is a series of wearable accessories for people with limited use of their arms or hands, like those who've had an injury or amputation. BareBag's innovatively engineered anti-swing hook imperceptibly integrates into a fashion accessory, allowing users to hang any bag right at their waist without using their hands. Its ButterSlide technology also enables users to adjust the strap with just one hand effortlessly. BareBag is designed to make life easier for anyone who needs their hands free, offering a smart way to boost independence and improve the quality of life for its users.
Situated within the contemporary discourse surrounding inclusive design and accessible fashion, Ke Zheng's Barebag Series Fashionable Prosthetics represents a thoughtful intervention at the intersection of functional necessity and aesthetic desirability, transforming utilitarian carrying solutions into objects of considered visual appeal. The work demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of how accessories function as extensions of the body, positioning these leather attachments not as mere containers but as integrated components of personal presentation that enhance rather than encumber daily movement. The designer's material choices reveal careful attention to both tactile pleasure and visual warmth, selecting cognac-toned leathers that develop patina with use while maintaining structural integrity across varied conditions of wear. Compositionally, the photograph captures these objects in their intended context of active use, emphasizing the design philosophy that prioritizes freedom of movement and hands-free functionality for users navigating urban environments with shopping bags, personal devices, and the myriad demands of contemporary life. The Fashionable Prosthetics nomenclature itself suggests an understanding of accessories as bodily augmentations that extend human capability rather than simply decorating the surface, aligning with design traditions that view wearable objects as tools for enhanced living. The integration of adjustable strap systems and modular attachment points visible in the image suggests a systematic approach to personal organization that accommodates individual variation in body type, carrying preference, and daily activity pattern. This work invites contemplation of how design might better serve users whose needs have historically been overlooked by mainstream fashion accessories, asking viewers to consider what qualities define truly inclusive objects that welcome diverse bodies and abilities into participation with contemporary material culture.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- BareBag represents a universal, integrated solution for limited mobility and functionality for the millions of upper limb injured/amputees, who often struggle to carry their belongings and perform daily tasks with one hand. With versatile bag hooks integrated into cross-body fashion accessories, users can comfortably carry all types of bags at their waist hands-free. By solving a universal problem of busy hands, BareBag promotes social equity and improves the life quality for its users.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- BareBag: 135mm x 50mm x 90mm
BareBag Nano: 120mm x 12mm x 70mm - Tags
- Bag, Prosthetic, Fashion, Lifestyle, Assistive, Wallet, Amputee, Inclusive, Adaptive
- Production Technology
- BareBag is modularly assembled with a soft leather exterior and hard 3D-printed recycled PLA hook prosthetics. The modularity allows quick adaptation to configuration, and separate cleaning and recycling at the end of its life cycle. Its sustainable rPET strap is equipped with a 3D-printed slider specially engineered to enable smooth adjustment with one hand.
- Design Challenge
- The two main challenges during BareBag's development are maintaining the balance and stability of both BareBag and the carried bags, and inventing a strap slider mechanism for smooth one-hand adjustment. The wide-body hooks minimize bag-swinging or escaping while allowing the bag to slide in easily. BareBag's slider is re-engineered with a butterfly locking mechanism that allows the user to unlock with a simple pull, effortlessly adjust with one hand, and lock with a simple pinch. We iterated more than 50 prototypes to perfect the user experience.
- Project Duration
- BareBag started in January 2023 in New York City and finished in December 2023 in New York City
- Operation Flow
- By putting BareBag on like a cross-body bag, it blends into your style while being a prosthetic. With only one hand, unlock the strap slider by folding it up, and effortlessly slide it to adjust the strap length to fit your body. When you have bags to carry, simply hook the bag onto the integrated hook and let it grab the bags for you at waist level comfortably and stably, so your hands can be free to do more.
- Research
- BareBag is a novel integration that differentiates itself from both fashion accessories and prosthetics. The research for active annual demand from disabled users resulted in more than 3.77 million people in the US alone. BareBag's development went through a 6-month user testing phase with more than 50 prototypes, optimizing the reliability, stability, ease of use, aesthetics, and sustainability.
- Inspiration
- BareBag started with a bike accident that broke one of its founder's arms. This sudden shift in life quality made him realize how inconvenient it is to do everything with only one hand. Especially when doing dumb labor like carrying bags, he had no hands to even use a phone. However, all the bag carriers on the market are bulky and make the user's disability more visible. BareBag's mission is then set to be an everyday fashion accessory that imperceptively becomes the user's additional hand.
Colors of Barebag Series Fashionable Prosthetics
Get Barebag Series Fashionable Prosthetics
Adaptive Fashion Accessories for Independent Living
We create stylish wearable accessories that empower people with limited mobility to carry bags hands-free. Our award-winning designs blend seamlessly into everyday fashion while providing practical solutions for independence. Sustainable materials, thoughtful engineering, universal appeal.
G0E7 ShopGrand Interview about Barebag Series Fashionable Prosthetics
A bike accident that broke my arm, forced me to experience a life with only one functional hand. I found myself often having trouble carrying items while doing tasks, such as grabbing a coffee, opening doors, and make phone calls. So I wanted to design a wearable carrier that can help free my hands. Through months of research and test, me and my partner designed an elegant way to integrate an open hook system into wearable fashion.
The key engineering challenge is to test endlessly to find out the most appropriate size and materials that are not only securely grab the most bags and umbrellas, but also appeals proportionately decent for urban fashion. we want the hook mechanism to almost disappear and become one with the body.
ButterSlide is the very first feature we want to achieve in the development of BareBag. Among the dozens of slider we bought on the market, we found it’s very difficult to achieve one-hand strap-adjustment while having a very clean and minimal form factor. The closest one might be the buckle commonly used on the bottom of backpack straps, but it still sacrifices visual simplicity, having a fairly long strap dripping down in the air. We tried buttons, magnets, springs, but eventually we took inspiration from the infamous butterfly mechanism keyboard, to design a foldable slider that looks just like another normal slider.
Sustainability been a big part of our design. Fully using reclaimed fabrics and recycled plastics has been our goals. while this generation of BareBag might not be able to 100% achieved this goal, we found utilizing 3-D printing technology could help us get closer to that at early stage. It’s not only easier to access recycle 3-D printing materials for production, but also easier to recycle the 3-D printed test models we produced during the development.
BareBag was initially designed to be a bag carrier for the upper limb disabled. As the product evolved, we discovered that it might be a feature that is universally demanded, Because our product solves the daily problem of busy hand, and everybody has that. Eventually, BareBag became an affordable prosthetics, an ergonomic bag carrier, and a fashionable crossbody bag. It’s really is a unique product that created its exclusive category.
I believe inclusiveness and empathy is a big part of adaptive design. That means sometimes the users might not want to be treated special, they need a good, equal experience. So BareBag never will look like an obvious prosthetic. It is a personal, functional fashion that serves the users’ confidence.
The most difficult part is to get the haptics and the smoothness of adjustment. It took us more than 8 months of engineering and testing to get it right. Difference between versions often is a quarter of a millimeter in the structural mechanism, but that tiny bit of material always makes a big difference in your hand.
I hope this could encourage more fashion designers to care more about life with limited experience, and how they can make that life more equal.
Making and testing is the most crucial part of our design process. For countless times we have to start over just because the model felt not good enough in the hands or doesn’t look good enough in real life. We really have to always see and touch that exact color in that exact material on that exact form to feel if it’s right on the human body. It’s probably the reason why it takes our team such a long time to develop the product.
I believe the future of adaptive design it’s about creating more integrated experiences that enhance the life of all people. The art is to almost imperceptibly bring equity to everyone. Just like how an accessible elevator works, with only a separate panel of buttons and an addition door that make all the difference.