A dress that glows in the dim
In 2016, actress Claire Danes appeared at the Met Gala in a one-of-a-kind Zac Posen dress. In keeping with this year’s theme – “Manus x Machina: Fashion in the Age of Technology” – the fanciful Cinderella-like ball gown is made of fiber-optic woven organza, allowing the high-tech garment to glow in the dim. “Each panel of fabric, yarn, is connected to a little battery that charges it,” Posen said. “Someone actually has to get under the dress to manually turn on 30 separate airy panels, but once they’re all on it gets electrifying.”
Spray painted dress
Going a step further, Dr. Manel Torres, managing director of Fabrican and inventor of the sprayed fabric, which decorated model Bella Hadid during the Coperni Spring Summer ’23 finale. Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant, creators of the Paris-based el lab, became involved with h Fabrican during that magical moment during Paris Fashion Week when a team of specialists led by Torres spray-painted a white, minimalist Coperni dress directly onto her body. According to the magazine article, the spray uses Torres’ Fabrican liquid, which contains fibers suspended in a polymer solution that evaporates on contact with the surface. According to Torres, the fabric feels like suede, but the texture can change depending on the fibers used (natural or synthetic) and how they are applied.
A phone that matches your OOTD
Lenovo (Motorola’s parent company) has been working on adaptable OLED screens for some time. At Tech World in 2022, they showed off the rollable concept, where your smartphone or laptop can be rolled up or down to suit your screen preferences. Imagine turning your laptop into a mini TV for about an hour and then returning it to its original shape. Building on this, last October Motorola unveiled a concept phone with a rollable surface that can literally wrap around your wrist for hands-free operation.
But that’s not all – it can also match your outfit. Using an AI model running locally on the device, users can upload photos of their outfit of the day (OOTD) and generate one-of-a-kind images for their phone’s wallpaper, giving the term “fashion accessory” a whole recent meaning.
Programmable digital tuning
Last year at Adobe Max’s annual conference, the company unveiled Project Primrose, an interactive dress made of wearable textiles. The textiles are adaptable, allowing the user to project patterns and images onto the body like a programmable screen.
“Unlike customary clothing, which is stagnant, Primrose allows me to refresh my look in an instant,” said design director Christine Dierk. Designs can be animated with a click of a button or even with a movement, she added.
Shrewd yoga pants
Modern York wearable technology startup Wearable X has created a pair of yoga pants that can provide real-time feedback on the accuracy of yoga poses by emitting vibrations to the hips, knees and ankles. The pants, called Nadi X, cost about $259 in the US.
