From an issue of Popular Science, March 1940.
Suspended from the shoulders and strapped around the waist, a compact radio transmitting and receiving set, battery-operated and weighing only five pounds, is now being tried out by New York City police officials. A microphone is attached to the vest.
Over the Spring ‘06 season, SHOWstudio is embarking upon a series of projects devoted to exploring The Sound of Clothes. Continuing our commitment to re-thinking mainstream fashion editorial, we believe fashion audio to be a genuinely new frontier. Beyond overlaying imagery with non-specific sound - such as favourite songs or ambient music - the aim of The Sound of Clothes series is to explore a range of audio possibilities, such as discovering the actual sound a garment makes.
Anechoic is a ‘collections story’ project that uses sound instead of visuals to interpret the essence of key garments the A/W ‘06-7 season by leading fashion brands. A live recording session in a specialist recording studio -a hemi-anechoic chamber- on 1 June 2006 was used to create a series of groundbreaking interactives that for the first time in fashion media, detailed the precise sound of fashion materials such as feathers, sequins, glass crystals and beads, nylon, taffeta, leather, velvet, jacquard, zips and metallic chains.
A company called Luminex has hit on the idea of weaving fibre-optics into fabric, so the wearer can really light up a room when they enter it. Luminex’s Cristiano Peruzzi says: “It is a fabric containing, amongst other things, fibre-optics, but there is also a technical side to it. “The system consists of cabling, and the fibre-optics are lit by high-efficiency LEDs. The system powering it varies according to the function.
Luminex’s glimmering garments include shining shawls, as well as shirts and trousers that twinkle. But it is not just night-clubbers whose stars are coming out at night.
Cristiano Peruzzi says: “There are more immediate applications, everything from clothes for special events or occasions and accessories, and also household furnishings, cushions etc.
“But there are also a whole range of applications that are more technical, such as the security and emergency services.”
It is easy to see how this technology could conceivably save lives in conditions where visibility is low, such as in fog or smoke.
Putting technology into fashion might also save the life of Prato’s home-grown fabrics industry, currently meeting the challenge of new competition from Chinese companies and imports.
The Italians are not the only ones exploring the interface between fabric and technology.
The British company Eleksen has come up with a fabric that is sensitive to touch.
Elektex consists of three layers of fabric that allow a charge to run between them when you touch them.
Eleksen’s chief executive Robin Shephard says: “If it is simply touched, the software will say ‘it has been touched, so make that a button. So for a keyboard, make that a Q, make that a W, make that an E, when it is touched here, here, here.’
“But equally the software can say ‘if it is touched in [a particular] sort of motion, then it is a swipe gesture and I want you to put the volume up or I want you to put the volume down.’”
With the software rather than the fabric itself determining what it is used for, the applications are limited only by your imagination and what is likely to make money.
It can be used as a PDA pouch, especially if you go simply print a keyboard on the side and tap away.
Eleksen also hopes that one day every jacket will come equipped with wireless and washable iPod controls.
So how far are we from full blown hardware that is actually soft?
Robin Shephard says: “The fashion brands are just understanding now that technology can be a fundamental part of fashion.
“Flexible displays [will] become proper flexible displays that you can bung in the washing machine and it will wash them for thirty times and they will be fine. When that happens, then we’ll see a whole new wave of technologies and information being able to be put into apparel and clothing.”
It is not inconceivable that the technology and gadgets you use may not just seem to cost, but actually become, the shirt off your back.
Via BBC News.
Philips Research intends to impress the visitors at this year’s IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung) with a world-first demonstration of promotional jackets and furniture featuring its innovative Lumalive technology. Lumalive textiles make it possible to create fabrics that carry dynamic advertisements, graphics and constantly changing color surfaces. The Philips stand in Hall 22 will act as a showcase for the Lumalive textile products that will be worn by Philips’ hostesses and embedded into booth furniture of the Future Zone.
Although the technology has been developed only recently —early prototypes were exhibited at IFA 2005— Philips Research has made immense progress in fully integrating Lumalive fabrics into garments demonstrated by the jackets worn by Philips’ hostesses at the show. These first-generation jackets are ready for commercialization by companies partnering with Philips Research, particularly those in the promotional industry looking for a new, high-impact medium. Interested parties could use the technology to transform their event and enhance their visitors’ experiences.
Lumalive fabrics feature flexible arrays of colored light-emitting diodes (LEDs) fully integrated into the fabric - without compromising the softness or flexibility of the cloth. These light emitting textiles make it possible to create materials that can carry dynamic messages, graphics or multicolored surfaces. Fabrics like drapes, cushions or sofa coverings become active when they illuminate in order to enhance the observer’s mood and positively influence his/her behavior.
The jackets are comfortable to wear, and the Lumalive fabrics only become obvious when they light up to display vivid colored patterns, logos, short text messages or even full color animations. The electronics, batteries and LED arrays are fully integrated and invisible to the observer and wearer. The jackets feature panels of up to 200 by 200 mm², although the active sections can be scaled up to cover much larger areas such as a sofa.
“Taking the Lumalive fabrics from prototypes to integrated products has been a major challenge,” said Bas Zeper, Managing Director of Photonic Textiles, Philips Research. “The light emitting textiles have to be flexible, durable and operated by reasonably compact batteries. Fitting all that into a comfortable, lightweight garment is a considerable engineering success.”
“What Philips Research showed last year were research prototypes; this year the jackets and furniture represent versions that are ready to go into commercial production, and include integrated power sources and control electronics,” said Zeper.
The products include features that make them practical for daily use. For example, when integrating the Lumalive fabrics into the garment Philips Research has made the parts that can’t be easily washed — such as the batteries and control electronics—simple to disconnect and reconnect after the garment has been cleaned. Even the light-emitting layer can be easily removed and refitted to the jacket.
Philips Research is inviting all potential partners to talk about the immediate commercialization potential of Lumalive textiles at IFA 2006 where the company’s booth will act as a showcase for the technology and a focal point for discussions.
“Perishables,” by Turkish artist Pinar Yolacan, is a series of photographs of elderly women modeling Victorian-style garments the artist fashioned from animal parts, including tripe, intestines, stomachs and skin.
Some wear vintage blouses of white, ivory or pink that complement similarly hued meat adornments; in other cases, their garments are made completely of flesh.
A long-faced woman in a pink blouse sports an equally attenuated intestine scarf. Another’s wrinkled skin falls like the draped chicken skins that serve as her blouse; she holds her head high as if to endure her outfit with dignity.
Via FA < gridskipper.
UNCHARTED TERRITORY. Never ones to stop pushing design to its most distant edges, Miyake and Fujiwara have been tinkering with the recipe for the fabric. “When we started A-POC we had no idea what its potential might be. It was a new way to make things using a new process. We have grown with the A-POC process,” Miyake writes via e-mail from Japan. “Today, we feel that the potential for its applications can extend into many different areas of design. The challenge is to find materials that are suited to the process.”
Fujiwara makes it clear that from the beginning of A-POC the creative duo was also simply looking for new ways to experiment with software programming. “Computer technology from the United States was a wave in the 1990s. And Issey is typhoon,” says Fujiwara, who speaks in concise, nearly haiku-like sentences. “We wanted to make a new solution for making soft materials with computer technology. Hard materials have seen lots of new solutions.”
Originally the prototypical A-POC fabric was a knit combination of wool, nylon, and polyurethane. In later incarnations, Miyake and Fujiwara created a more complex weave made of 100% cotton. The team later added elastic for flexibility, woven in layers to lend stretch.
CHAIR WEAR. Today, Miyake and Fujiwara are pushing the patented A-POC process in increasingly complex directions that could potentially revolutionize the way mass-market goods like upholstered home furnishings and jeans are manufactured. And at least in theory, because no sewing is involved, A-POC technology might eventually eliminate the use of sweatshops and lower costs in both fields. (In fact, the A-POC line is already lower-priced than Miyake’s other lines.)
Before the end of 2006, Miyake will offer consumers a product co-designed with hip London-based furniture maker/architect Ron Arad that blurs the edges between designer clothing and designer chairs. Called Gemini, it’s a streamlined, body-cushioning seat pillow, made of A-POC fabric, which morphs into an elegant, body-hugging jacket.
Around the same time, Miyake and Fujiwara will debut the world’s first line of reversible jeans. The new product will position Miyake to tap into the growing premium-jeans market — which accounted for 18% of 2005 women’s denim sales in U.S. department stores, up from 12% in 2004, according to research from NPD Group.
CREATING RIPPLES. How and why did Miyake decide to make the foray into furnishings? When A-POC made its retail debut in 2000, Miyake designed a chair using the fabric. But then last year he was approached by Arad, who was long inspired by Miyake’s inventive approach to creating new materials and processes. Arad points out that his curvaceous plastic Ripple chair, produced by Italian manufacturer Moroso, features what looks a lot like sculpted versions of Miyake’s signature pleats.
“I did the Ripple chair, rather than do normal upholstery. And I have to say, when anyone does anything with ripples, it makes you think of Issey Miyake’s work!” Arad says enthusiastically, the exclamation points palpable in his speech. “The design influence was there before we collaborated, so I thought, why not call A-POC? And what a go it was!”
HUMAN ELEMENT. The collaboration was a natural one. Arad and Miyake, both luminaries of avant-garde design, were already friends. Yet they had never crossed the boundaries of fashion and industrial design to collaborate on a single consumer product. Arad was intrigued by several aspects of Miyake’s concept. “I thought A-POC was a very exciting way to make garments and fabrics that are so individual and amazingly adaptable by the end user. The idea is in contrast with the computer-controlled, industrial-machine process of making them,” says Arad.
He also was turned off by the thought of chair coverings sewn in possibly exploitative factories. “Working for the furniture industry and researching upholstery, I saw rows and rows of sewing machines and sweatshops. And I thought, why can’t we harness A-POC’s knowledge and inventiveness to our field as well?” Arad adds.
And Miyake thought Arad’s use of a streamlined industrial process used to mold and manufacture the Ripple chair illustrated that the two designers were working on parallel tracks, despite their different disciplines. “Ron was experimenting making furniture using the single process technique. That’s how we make A-POC. The two concepts were an ideal fit,” writes Miyake via e-mail.
“LIKE BREAD OR WATER.” The chair, unveiled on the trade-show circuit at Milan’s International Furniture Fair in April (see BW Online, 4/11/06, “Milan: A Fresh Look at Furniture”), will make its retail debut in mid-fall. The A-POC Gemini chair cover costs $1,360, and the Ripple chair sells for $400. Both will be available in limited quantities at the Issey Miyake boutique in Manhattan’s trendy TriBeCa neighborhood.
Just as a comfortable seat and jackets are essential to contemporary life, so too are comfortable jeans. The everyday-ness of jeans inspired Miyake and Fujiwara to take on the denim market. “Jeans are like bread or water for human clothing. Everyone wears them every day. But sometimes it’s boring. This is the gate of entrance for us. We are thinking of something general to make new,” explains Fujiwara.
Ever open to design challenges, Miyake and Fujiwara realized denim — a very thick weave, one that, by today’s often-complicated jean styles, usually includes intentional fraying or distressed fabric — would be hard to tackle using the A-POC model. And Miyake and Fujiwara didn’t want to make yet another pair of look-alike designer dungarees to add to an already-crowded marketplace. So they decided to try something even more unusual than merely jeans woven from a single thread. They decided to create reversible jeans.
NO LIMITS. The high-concept, high-end dungarees, called “Jupiter,” will debut in a new exhibition “Skin and Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture,” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Opening on Sept. 24, the show addresses the crossover between cutting-edge fashion and cutting-edge design. Jupiter will be shown alongside the Gemini chair cover and Ripple chair. The jeans will hit stores soon thereafter.
What’s next for A-POC? As the Jupiter and Gemini branding of the latest A-POC products implies, the sky is the limit. As Fujiwara says, A-POC is “Very laboratory! Like jellyfish arms. Issey moves in so many directions…he has so much energy and touches everything.”
South Korea want people wearing South Korean “smart” clothes” with built-in digital music players.
The government is backing efforts to launch the digitized apparel by the end of the year, hoping to win a top position for the country as an exporter of such clothing.
“The research and development of smart clothing can’t be left up to the market only, because of its high risk. The government has taken the role of offsetting this risk,” Hwang Kyu-yearn, an official at the Commerce and Industry Ministry, said Wednesday, declining to elaborate on the government’s support to the industry.
The clothing would let people enjoy the gamut of an MP3 player’s functions while avoiding the hassles of carrying the units separately. Some devices would have to be unplugged from the clothes for washing.
Since 2004, smart-apparel development has involved a range of research institutes, universities and conglomerates with the active support of the South Korean government.
The government even has estimated that the global market for digital clothing could be $7 billion by 2014. South Korea wants more than 20 percent of it.
Wonderland, by Prof. Helen Storey of The Helen Storey Foundation; Prof. Tony Ryan of The Polymer Centre at Sheffield University; Patricia Belford and Aoife Ludlow, Interface at University of Ulster. This project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
It is clear that if we are to tackle the problems of the public’s engagement with environmental issues where they can play an immediate part, then guilt and the future threat of environmental disasters is not enough. This project aims through the innovative marriage of art, science, fashion, technology and education to engage public consciousness through more positive currency, through humor, imagination and wonder, both on behalf of the next generation of consumers as well as existing ones. The Disappearing Dress is part of this wider project.
The garment is constructed of a water soluble polymer. When dissolved the fabric turns into a tiny amount of liquid gel which can be reconstituted into a solid once more or used to grow plants. The dress is a dramatic illustration of how the material behaves.
In future exhibitions, in London, Sheffield and Belfast in 2007, there will be a series of dresses which will dissolve over the course of 3 weeks and these will be the introduction to the other half of the project - ‘Ideas that can change the world’, practical and inspiring ideas for environmentally sound products and recycling methods.
Tap-N-Bass by Lalya Gaye, Valerie Bugmann and Alexander Berman. It is basically an improvised tap dance performance where the sounds of wired-up tap shoes are picked-up by piezo contact microphones and remixed live, resulting in drum-n-bass-inspired music (via).
Drum-n-bass is one of the most exhilarating music styles that have emerge during the last few years. Noticing pattern similarities between certain rhythms in drum-n-bass and in tap dancing, we decided to see what would happen if we crossed these two genres. In Tap-n-bass, we aimed at making a tap dance performance that would produce booming bass and fast syncopated rhythms reminiscent of drum-n-bass, while staying true to the genre of tradition of tap dancing and its characteristic sound. The music is produced live by sounds picked-up by contact microphones attached on the shoes. The sounds are filtered and remixed live through a mixer board and custom-made program run on a laptop. The Tap-n-bass performance is improvised and collaborative, in terms of the dialogue established between the laptop remixer and the tap dancers.
You might remember the No-Contact Jacket by Adam Whiton and Yolita Nugent. The duo is back with the Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) Clothing System, a similar system designed to intervene in domestic violence situations this time.
“The clothing utilizes pressure sensitive fabric to measure impacts to the wearer’s body. The physical abuse data is transmitted to a remote server where it can be archived or distributed to a trusted community or proper authorities. The wearer can chat with their IPV clothing via an artificial intelligence agent that offers them feedback and suggestions based on the received data. This project explores the wearable as a self reflective safe space to assist the abused wearer in reconnecting with social networks.”
Protect your heart with Tobias Wong’s Ballistic Rose Brooch.
Float-A-Pet is an illuminated inflatable pet collar with smart sensor and locative technology (via).
The collar serves to support two main situations. First, the passive system is used to recognize where your pet is located at night. The flexible solar cells gather the suns energy during the day and store it in small rechargeable batteries. A light sensor recognizes low light conditions and triggers LEDs to illuminate the collar. Second, the active system is used in disaster relief situations. For example: In the event of a hurricane or the act of simply slipping into a pool. The Collar has a clipped on CO2 cartridge designed to break away. When the integrated humidity sensor reaches its threshold, it is activated. It dispenses CO2 and inflates the collar into a float. The passive solar system will support the floatation device at night by blinking intermittently to get one’s attention.
Mr Mannings, whose own research is to do with ubiquitous positioning systems (knowing where everything is at all times) argues that wearable computing will have as yet unanticipated consequences for society.
There are eye-catching, or fun, applications: but has research into wearable computing a serious purpose? Professor Sandy Pentland of MIT’s prestigious Media Lab, one of the world’s leading experts on the topic, says that for “wearable computer” read “mobile phone”.
He argues: “The mobile phone is the first truly pervasive computing platform. The question is not: ‘is the wearable computer a gimmick?’ but whether it will be people’s primary computing platform and push all others decisively aside.”
He backs this view with a commercial rather than social argument: “With telecoms operators’ revenues from voice services dropping quickly, everyone is looking for digital data services to stoke growth. The model of a wearable computer is exactly that…and it is working.
“Google maps for handhelds, push e-mail and digital cameras are all computer applications migrating to the mobile. Even the physical aspect of the mobile is being designed around wearability. Look at the Moto line, the Oakley Bluetooth glasses and Bluetooth headsets.”
It is an argument that finds favour with Ken Blakeslee, chairman of Webmobility Ventures, an investment and advisory company, a longtime advocate of computing on the move: “The whole area of personal electronics is about connectivity,” he says, pointing to the importance of wearable human/machine interfaces – the input and display – rather than processors.
The mobile phone, he argues, has as much power and resources as a desktop computer but has shortcomings: “The time it really lets you down is when you want to listen to something or experience something. That is where, I believe, better headsets and displays will come into their own.
“I think it’s about things you can carry rather than wear. If they are fashionable you show them; otherwise you hide them. People don’t want to be seen carrying chunks of technology.”
As examples, Mr Blakeslee points to lightweight, comparatively inexpensive (around €300) head-up displays in the shape of spectacles made by MicroOptical Corporation and by Incuiti Corporation. Many experts believe that the most important uses of wearable (and embeddable) technology will be in medicine and health. Professor Joe Paradiso of MIT, for example, developed shoes that analyse the movement of a dancer or the gait of a disabled person.
According to Robin Mannings of BT: “The fact that clothing is intimately in contact with the body gives you the opportunity to monitor body systems closely: the heart through the shirt, the head through the hat.”
He says that with increasing health and safety legislation, wearable computers would be a way of ensuring people are in the right place and doing the right things in the right way: “There is, inevitably, a Big Brother aspect to all that, but I’m afraid that is just part of business.”
Mr Mannings also envisages intelligent clothing conversing with chips inside the body to monitor well-being: “If I was having an operation, I wouldn’t mind the surgeon slipping in a chip or two while he’s at it,” he says.
But then, futurologists think like that.
Flame 5
by Nina Marquart and Richard Etter
Flame 5 (F5) is a Bluetooth enabled jacket that enables communication via heat. If a person sends an SMS to a remote person wearing Flame 5, the clothing heats up depending on the personal message. Flame 5 works with standard Bluetooth mobile phones.
SMS 2 HEAT
The jacket can be configured conveniently via the personal mobile. Depending on the person sending the sms and its contents, different parts of the shirt heat up for different durations. The wearer can configure the jacket via his or her mobile phone. The users define which words or sentences heat up which parts of the clothing for how long. This is important, since it enables users to define their own language or heat patterns that suit best to them. E.g. heat near the heart for a sms from your loved-one. Let your imagination fill in the details from there. Since the interaction shall be simple, the jacket works with standard Bluetooth mobile phones.
Today’s mobile phones use sound, vibration and light to interact with the user and use rather alerting mechanisms. Flame 5 offers mobile phones a more sensual and calm communication via heat. Heat has been chosen since it is often associated with emotional connectedness. Moreover heat can be felt unobtrusively and in the periphery of the wearer’s attention.
Embedded in the jacket is light-weight technology that allows the mobile device of the wearer to connect to the jacket wirelessly and to specifically heat parts of the clothing. The following technical components are seamlessly integrated in the jacket. A Bluetooth module that enables communication with the mobile phone. A custom-built circuit board that is attached to the bluetooth module and controls the heating elements. A small battery pack. And finally heating elements that are connected to the circuit board. When developing the hardware the focus was on minimal size of all components. All hardware that is not water-proof is stored in small pockets and can be easily detached which enables to wash the jacket.
Pattern Language: Clothing as Communicator. A touring exhibition that explores clothing as a medium for personal expression and as a mode of communication between wearers, their clothes, and the fashion system. Over 40 wearable works of art by such well-known artists and designers as Issey Miyake, James Rosenquist, Yoko Ono, Joseph Beuys, and Mimi Smith examine the boundaries between form and function, and between fantasy and practicality. UCSB Art Museum, Santa Barbara, CA. Through August, 27, 2006.
Website for the exhibition in Cambridge, MA.
