Why do we want what we want? Ground breaking fashion designer and Professor in Fashion and Science, Helen Storey MBE, is setting out to find out just that. Her revolutionary project, Wisdoms on Desire, focuses on a key challenge for our times – excessive consumption, specifically; ‘ Exploring the precognitive neurological basis for excessive consumption, currently fuelled by design and business models, which depend upon excessive consumption as the prime generator of profit through resource, intensive production and the final retail offer.’

This daunting task will initially take the fascinating form of exploring the love affair between women and shoes, studying a group of women with an extreme passion for designer footwear, beginning with cult US poker pro and passionate Louboutin fan, Beth Shak. Ultimately, Storey hopes to reveal what it is that stimulates a compulsive passion for the objects we desire and how this could influence the culture of rampant acquisition that prevails in the West.

Going far beyond psychological research into the effects of advertising on creating desire, Storey will be probing into new territory in a radical experiment which seeks a deeper understanding of the triggers to the preconscious disposition towards pleasure and rewards –  what Storey describes as the “what-we-see-before-we-even-know-we’ve-seen-it experience””.

Neurobiology is at the heart of excess in fashion consumption, with recent studies confirming the link between neural networks and addictive behaviours, so Storey is working with neuroscientist Prof Francis McGlone of Liverpool John Moores University on manipulating FMRI technology to transpose the use of neuroscience in the marketing of goods and services “to creating the means for new values and behaviours that could make the current consumptive fashion model redundant, and create demand for new manifestations of fashion.” Storey hopes the research may add to what has already been learnt in the field of consumer behaviour psychology, while “staying closer to neuroscience allows to us to find out more of the previously unknown – psychology tends to focus on a reaction to something that has already happen at a pre conscious level – we want to be in at the source”.

She explains that the FMRI research concentrates on extreme passions, such as those of footwear fetishists, as brain scan results generated by a wider stimulus, of say clothes in general, would have far too many variables to consider, and clear pattern would be hard to spot”  meaning they need to work with a very distinct stimulus to explore at a deeper level; “there’s something about the narrowness and specificness of a heightened desire for designer shoes which allows us a better chance of uncovering something recognisably new”. It’s not unlike biologists choosing to work with fruit flies, not because there is something intrinsically interesting in them themselves, but because the relatively simple make up of them structurally can tell us a lot.”

Wisdoms on Desire is also breaking boundaries in research methodologies, opening up the experiment to broad public engagement throughout the experiment through “Twitter Salons”, where an international public are invited to feed in their perspectives in tandem with the FMRI scan research conducted in the neuroscience labs. The ‘Twitter Salons’ are a transatlantic cultural experiment co-hosted by Shak, who herself owns over 1,800 pairs of shoes and has 46,702 Twitter followers. It’s an opportunity to ask key questions which may draw out a female-centric response around a personal passion for the collection and hoarding of shoes.

Storey reveals that this world-first venture into the use of social media to generate ‘extreme comparison’ data aims to “bring reality to the project”, stating that “from the very beginnings it was a very deliberate move to go public – as with our Catalytic Clothing experiment – where we were interested in a broad and public response to an idea like this.”

The Twitter experiment will be opening with the question ‘which pair of shoes make you feel most empowered as a woman and why?’ The team will then be looking at the results as a body of work in itself, and evaluating what the specific nature of social media research can and can’t tell us.  Storey explains that “the impact of social media and its place in the world is still being grappled with. It’s something we’re exploring more deeply at the University in terms of how it can, and can’t serve research and its wider relationship with the outside world – This project is experimental in every facet of its research, so we may fall on our faces a few times before we get it right! ”

Storey is dedicated to this pioneering style of experiment that places value on public engagement and transparency, stating that the whole project will be public at every stage ; she confirms “it is scary putting things into the public domain at a time when you could be accused of not knowing what you’re doing, but it’s very valuable to be inclusive, and to embrace the unpredictable, it’s one way to try and ensure it’s ultimately of value to society.”

Storey views Wisdoms on Desire as “a continuing exercise in the relationship between the sciences and arts, exploring what role the arts can play in further demystifying this world for the public and playing a part in ensuring that what the sciences come up with can be of genuine use to the world – I don’t think we are living in times when academic fascination is enough, there are huge problems that need solving out there – and so if science is about the nature of who we are and what IS, and the arts is about how we experience what it means to be human, then it makes perfect sense to me that these two should never be separated – – in their original form, they are already in relationship with each other, they have to be again!”

Thus far the first four subjects have been through the FMRI, the protocols having been set, and the results are anticipated in a month’s time. From there the initial response and results of the Twitter Salon will inform a funding application, which would allow for a larger scale research project to take place in 2013.

When asked which fields she would like to see the findings influence, Storey reveals that it makes most sense to start with the fashion industry, although she says we will need to be careful about how we share these findngs; “this approach is quite new, and we need to get further down the road before we engage the fashion industry at large – involving the public in how they would even like to come into contact with this new knowledge will be paramount. But the whole agenda of Wisdoms on Desire speaks to the key themes of Better Lives at LCF and the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, which will want to place focus on the most appropriate ways of putting the power of these finding into the hands of the consumers direct.”

With ambitions to engage the popular imagination in sustainable behaviour and to perhaps go on to create a new blueprint for design business and education that can fulfil a new type of relationship to fashion, Wisdoms on Desire could influence  the future of global business. To be the first to find out what shape this takes, follow Storey’s progress on Twitter @ProfHelenStorey .

Read the Arts Hotlist interview with Helen

Read Helen’s research profile

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The Gilbert Scott launches weekend brunches in February with delights such as the Great British bacon sandwich and Dorset crab ‘Benedict’.  With the addition of brunch cocktails (pitchers of Bloody Marys or Gilbert’s Morning Fizz (tequila, Kam & Sons ginseng spirit, homemade grapefruit soda) they are set to be a great way to start your weekend, or the day after the night before! Two lucky Arts Hotlisters will win brunch for two, with each winner winning one course each for them and their guest, and a brunch cocktail each.

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Good luck and happy dining!