“The ‘Decay’ project explores how traces of time and use can be embedded in textile. By wearing a carbon fibre suit over a white blouse, textile designer Marie Ilse Bourlanges captured the gestures of the body bending, stretching, scratching and rubbing. The transfer imprint on the blouse was then translated into a pattern of lines that ebb and flower across the textile.” Continue on nextnature.

Images from nextnature.

Image from metropolismag.com
An interesting interview at fashionprojects.org
More on Catherine Chow

Italian fashion design has been at the forefront of the global fashion industry for years and remains one of the prominent drivers of Italy’s economy. Elisabetta Cianfanelli and Stoffel Kuenen along with research team Roberta Baccolini, Gabriele Goretti, and Ambra Trotto have published a book titled Metamorphosis that discusses how technology will evolve the fashion industry and help establish new and innovative global markets.

After waiting 4 weeks for the book to arrive, I can finally provide some highlights…

The book begins with a manifesto that is a call-to-action for designers to focus on a user-centered design approach that considers a balance of social and virtual spheres (described below and in the book) that they say are required when integrating new technologies into fashion products that introduce new interactions.

The book begins its argument with an analysis of the history of fashion design and manufacturing processes specific to the Italian fashion “system” as they describe. “New technologies integrated into fashion will lead to a metamorphosis of meaning associated with the use of a product, offering a new way of interpreting it… based on its ability to offer various dimensions of interaction of which the user forms the center and that create an entirely [new] experience.

The fashion system [fashion design, materials, technology innovation and manufacturing processes] allows for the study of its functional, its expressive, and its communicative aspects.

The challenge lies in transforming the male, rational and cerebral image of technology and present it in a sexy, female, elegant form that [fashion] naturally creates.”

The book goes on to argue that advancing technologies provide a myriad of opportunities for the fashion industry to differentiate and position itself in a global market. For example, “material technologies offer new fabrics with new properties to work with, the miniaturization of electronics offer completely new types of functions leading to new forms of expression and interaction for wearable technology designers to give form to.” This makes the relationship between the culture, context and the interactions that the wearable product provides incredibly important.

The book supports this argument through a variety of wearable technology products that explore the balance of value and interaction through the understanding and realization of social and virtual spheres (as they describe them). Some examples include:

Beehugged – encouraging a society where showing mutual care and sharing become a natural (and public) habit

Cache – a fashion product meant as an expression of identity

Stir it On! – providing a sense of personal space and protection

HearWear – transforming and visualizing environmental sound levels

Climate dress – raising awareness of environmental factors we are normally unaware of

And many more…

This book is definitely worth the shipping wait and I recommend that it should be in every wearable technology designer’s library.

Go to Polistampa for € 25,60 (20% off the list price) for ordering info. For faster shipping for those of you in the states, the book is now available at plugandwear.com.

Interactive media student from the University of Dundee in Scotland, Calum Pringle, has created  a project that helps aid people affected by speech dysarthria called Subtle Subtitles. Inspired by his mother, who suffers with slurred speech, the scarf helps provide additional context of the conversation while preserving the intimacy of the exchange. It uses an iPhone placed in a pocket and through a system of filtration that Pringle has developed, and existing speech recognition technologies, only the vital words in a conversation are subtitled and displayed on the iPhone.

Images from Subtle Subtitles.

I love these playful and simple cushion controls created by Didier Hilhorst and Nicholas Zambetti at Droog Design a few years ago. The project consists of different cushions each with its own function: one for the channels, one for the power, one for the volume and so on. The project aims to transform the fights over “who has the remote” into playful cushion fights. Like most of Droog’s work, the project is conceptually strong as they change our perspective on the core interaction by re-imagining it and turning it into play.

Continue reading on didierandnicholas.com and droog.com.
Images from didierandnicholas.com.

Wearable technology has its challenges, especially with how they get powered. Here’s a great energy-harvesting solution created by orange in collaboration with gotwind. Together, they created energy producing wellie boots that enable users to charge their phone or other mobile gadgets. The prototype wellies “use a unique ‘power generating sole’ that converts heat from your feet into an electrical current. This ‘welectricity’ can then be used to re-charge your mobile phone.” Continue reading on gotwind.org.

Images from gotwind.

One of the projects developed at the GVU Center at Georgia Tech is this pleat interface made of embroidered conductive thread that senses which way the user strokes them. They state that the pleated interface can be used to control the volume on an MP3 player, select names from a phonebook, scroll a website, etc.

If anyone is able to make it to this exhibit, please send photos!

One of my favorite designers, Moritz Waldemeyer, creates stage and electronic performance wear for a growing number of artists ranging from Bono to Rihanna to OK Go. One of his many outstanding projects includes a collaboration with OK Go and Fendi which resulted in a fantastical fur-studded laser-shooting guitar. The guitars will certainly bring out the rockstar in you.

Here’s how the project is described from the Design Miami website: Design Miami/ and Fendi partnered last April to produce the highly acclaimed Craft Punk project in Milan during Salone del Mobile. Craft Punk built upon the Design Performance program launched in 2007, which was intended to showcase ‘design in action’ and to allow Design Miami / visitors to gain appreciation for the process underlying the creation of experimental design. For Craft Punk we invited ten designers and studios to create craft-based work in front of live audiences inside Spazio Fendi, commingling radical design with fashion, music and video. For Design Miami / 2009, we are advancing our project with Fendi even further by presenting an exciting collaboration between tech-designer Moritz Waldemeyer and pop-sensation Ok Go. Moritz has intervened upon the selection of Gibson guitars, customizing them with laser lights and Fendi materials, merging the handcraft tradition of the Fendi brand with futuristic, luminous elements. When played, the guitars’ lasers interact with a video wall and leave traces that illustrate the music in real time.The lasers emulate the strings of the guitar and the vibrations transmit beautiful visual interpretations of the sound, extending the performers’ musical expression into the space around them. The guitars become like musical paintbrushes that produce synesthetic experiences for viewers. This project stands as an exemplar of the ways in which the fingers of contemporary design extend without boundaries into every field of cultural production. Ok Go will perform onsite during the show, experimenting with the instruments for the first time. After the show, the guitars will be given to Ok Go to use on their upcoming tour.

Images from waldemeyer.com, Flickr (Ian Witlen) and the deli.
For more info on Moritz Waldemeyer, visit his site.

• Bonnie Sandy, the founder of FashionCamp and Brooklyn Fashion Week will speaking on the Impact of Technology on Fashion Design
• Macala Wright will speak on Using Social Media + Creating Your Own Web Content
• Ralinda Harvey will speak on “How To Create A Successful Fashion Line” without going broke
• Syuzi Pakhchyan of fashioningtech.com will talk about technology in fashion and provide an introduction to soft circuits and wearable technology

For more info, go to fashioncamp.org

However long it’s been around in the wearable tech field, there seems to have been an explosion of light-up clothing in the news these days (read an earlier post about this topic). Now, I’m still not convinced that illuminating clothing is the best use of wearable technology, but it’s tough to ignore all of the hype form celebreties performing and walking down the red carpet in illuminating clothing to DIY hackers creating Light Bright LED garments.

Here’s some of the hype:

• According to talk2myshirt.com, there’s a trend in light-up clothing including the Light Bright LED vest created by Erik Johnson that includes a total of 1,536 three color (RGB) LEDs
• Recently, Cute Circuit has created a variety of celebrity dresses including a design for Francesca Rosella and a light-up dress for singer Katy Perry for an event that she attended at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Met Costume Institute Gala
• Rihanna and Moritz Waldemeyer lit up the stage with an LED dress for her ‘Last Girl On Earth tour‘
• Fashion designer Zaldy created outfits for the likes of Gwen Stefani, Britney Spears or Jennifer Lopez designed for Michael Jackson’s ‘This is It tour’ his complete stage outfit including a illuminated Tuxedo for the ‘Billie Jean’ performance.

I’m still waiting for that killer light-up app that brings meaning to the functionality. Perhaps it will come from the $15 million consortium of leading companies and institutes in lighting and flexible electronics like Holst Centre/TNO, IMEC, Freudenberg, TU Berlin, Ohmatex under the lead of Philips with it’s inventive technology called ‘Lumalive‘. According to talk2myshirt “PLACE-it, the short form for ‘Platform for Large Area Conformable Electronics by InTegration‘ is a newly formed initiative under the umbrella of the European Commission under its Seventh Framework Program.” I hope to see some real innovation come out of this research.

An actually cool light-up solution is a stage costume made and designed by Wei-Chieh Shih. According to fashioningtech, “the nylon suit is embedded with 200 laser diodes, transforming the performer into a mobile light show.”

Now we’re getting somewhere…

Images from talk2myshirt.com and fashioningtech.com.