Fashion's Technological Leap Forward

Technology is racing forward and changing the way textiles are used in fashion, from the whimsical to the practical. A new generation of "smart clothing" innovators is merging technology and textiles to transform fashion trends — not just on runways and in museums, but also in the way we dress every day. Whether it's phones masquerading as dresses or mood-sensing and color-changing fabrics, it's an exciting time in the smart clothing field.

Smart clothing, the fusion between technology and textiles, can generally be broken up into two categories: aesthetic and performance enhancing. As Rebecca Gaddis notes, "... aesthetic examples include everything from fabrics that light up to fabrics that can change color. Some of these fabrics gather energy from the environment by harnessing vibrations, sound or heat, reacting to this input. Then there are performance enhancing smart textiles, which will have a huge impact on the athletic, extreme sports and military industries."

Technology and fashion have been working together for well over a decade. Let's look at some highlights from past creations to more recent advancements the industry is striving towards today. 

CuteCircuit created the GalaxyDress, designed by Roland Mouret in 2005, which is embroidered with 24000 full color pixels making it the largest wearable display in the world. This dress was commissioned by the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago as the center piece of its show, “Fast Forward: Inventing the Future”, and will remain in the permanent collection. It was constructed using the smallest possible full-color LEDs lights. "The circuits are extra-thin, flexible, and hand embroidered on a layer of silk in a way that gives it stretch," explains the museum, "so the luminous fabric can move like normal fabric with lightness and fluidity. To diffuse the light there are four layers of silk chiffon that moves really beautifully as well."

Philips Design created the Bubelle dress, which senses the wearers emotions and changes color based upon those fluctuations. Lucy McRae, a body architect at Philips Design who lead this project, explains that "a garment can be a highly complex interactive electronic or biochemical device that is more responsive to subtle triggers like sensuality, affection and sensation." People often select clothing based on their personal individuality, and how the clothes make them feel. This dress is made up of "two layers, the inner layer contains biometric sensors that pick up a person’s emotions and projects them in colors onto the second layer, the outer textile." In the year of its release, the Bubelle dress placed first in Time Magazine Inventions Of The Year fashion category. While this design was created for demonstration purposes only, emotion-sensing clothing could be far more prevalent in the future. 

Studio Roosegaarde created INTIMACY 2.0, in 2010, which is a dress by Dutch designer Anouk Wipprecht described as "a fashion project exploring the relationship between intimacy and technology." The studio’s website explains that the dress is made out of either white or black leather and opaque "smart e-foils." These foils become increasingly transparent as the wearer’s heartbeat rises based on close personal encounters with people. If the transparency of this dress truly depends on a raised heartbeat then going for a run could be a risky business in this ensemble. It is probably best left as they explain it... "daringly perfect to wear on the red carpet." 

The year 2013 saw the creation of the Kickstarter campaign for "Radiate Athletics: The Future of Sports Apparel". The No Sweat: Advanced Workout shirt "changes color according to your body heat, revealing muscular/ vascular action while keeping you dry." An astonishing 8,556 backers pledged $579,599 to help bring this project to life. Initially they were asking for $30,000 to get this project started but due to overwhelming demand they are still running the Kickstarter campaign as all current stock is sold out. This revolutionary sportswear has 3 key principals: 

• Color change technology, which has been re-engineered from NASA. 
• Heat management properties to keep you cool and dry.
• Cutting edge material that is both extremely durable and anti-microbial.

 The Synapse garment debuted in 2014, as the first mind-controlled 3-D printed dress created by Dutch designer Anouk Wipprecht (who also designed the Intimate 2.0 garment above). An article on CNET explains that it is powered by Intel's Edison wearable microcomputer and is, "3D printed from a very flexible material called thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and created in collaboration with designer Niccolo Casas and Materialise — lights up embedded LEDs according to a variety of stimuli from the body of the wearer." Not only does this dress communicate the emotions of the wearer to those around her, but also gives the wearer better knowledge of her own fluctuations in attention and stress levels. This garment includes a camera placed in the bodice so it can take photographs of things that make the wearer feel tense or relaxed. 

With such innovative garments already created, what will the fashion and technology sectors come up with next?

A new Californian tech startup, Electroloom, is working on a form of printing "that produces fibers so fine they are comparable to cotton, allowing them to create items with a look and feel near-identical to that of conventional clothing" HighsNobility explains. This would have a huge impact on on sustainability issues the fashion industry currently has.

Concordia University in Montreal is taking another approach with a project called “Karma Chameleon”. Scientists are investigating "a way to harness electricity from the movement of the human body and use it to power a new kind of 'electronic fabric' that uses a very subtle current, the material would trigger super-fine wires woven into its makeup to change its color or illuminate according to the wearer’s actions."

Deakin University in Australia has researchers working on one of the most self-healing and waterproof materials ever imagined. Its properties are explained in high detail in the scientific journal Applied Materials & Interfaces. During testing Deakin scientists found "the fabric could stand up to 100 scratches with a razor blade before the waterproofing was seriously compromised, and over 200 wash cycles." 

As the fashion and technology sectors continue to collaborate and innovate in the creation of smart clothing, new fashion trends will be limited only by the bounds of our imaginations.