Pauline van Dongen (1986, Amsterdam) is a fashion designer and researcher specialised in smart clothing and textiles. With her design studio she develops alternatives for fashion by exploring how technology, such as electronics and smart materials, can add new value and meaning to clothing and can enhance the way we experience the world around us. Her studio received international recognition with projects such as the Solar Shirt, Phototrope and Issho. Pauline also received several nominations for her work: she was selected by Forbes for their list of ‘Top 50 Women in Tech Europe’ (2018) and as ‘MIT Innovator under 35 Europe’ (2017).

With her vision and through a hands-on, ‘material aesthetics’ approach she emphasizes the value of the physical, sensory experience of clothing and its nurturing qualities. This is central to her PhD dissertation entitled: “A Designer’s Material-Aesthetics Reflections on Fashion and Technology” (published by ArtEZ Press) with which she received her doctoral degree from Eindhoven University of Technology in 2019.

Besides leading her own design studio, Pauline was program manager of smart clothing at Holst Centre (TNO) between March 2019 and October 2020. She is a part-time postdoc researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology and is also a member of the advisory board of the ‘ArtEZ Fashion Professorship’, of ‘New Order of Fashion’, and of the program board of ‘CLICKNL’.