The Subway Scrunchie
A “First Aid Kit” for women using public transportation.
Women often face unwanted attention and are constantly adjusting behavior in response to the male gaze.
One “solution” is the Subway Shirt, but it’s impractical.
The Subway Scrunchie allows you to fold your subway shirt into a wearable accessory for easy portability and accessibility.
Keeping a pulse on subcultures for product innovation.
Public transportation in a city like New York presents commuters with countless obstacles. But for women in particular, one common scenario is unwanted attention. There’s one solution which emerged as a grassroots movement across major cities: women will wear a loose piece of clothing to ‘dampen their outfits’ when going out and especially during warmer months. This is what the internet calls the ‘Subway Shirt’. However, it’s impractical.
What if you’re traveling without a bag? What if it’s not part of your outfit? Where do you put it when you reach the bar? The Subway Scrunchie allows you to fold the subway shirt into an accessory for storage that’s portable and accessible.
Product Demo Goes Viral
With almost 1 million views and a 766.8% engagement rate
Leaning on my previous experience creating TikTok ads for DTC clients, I turned to the platform to post the product demo I filmed at midnight in the 77th st. station. By the time I was presenting my work the next morning, the post had 200k views and an active comments section. The video has since reached 933k views with a 766% engagement rate. Safe to say, I reached my target audience!
This project serves as an example of the benefits of leveraging social media for quick feedback to inform early prototyping. Commenters suggested changes to the form, proposed new use cases, validated the product and also questioned the concept in the context of male gaze.
