The interplay of electronic textiles and wearable technology, wearables for short, and fashion, design and science is a highly promising and topical subject. Offered here is a compact survey of the theory involved and an explanation of the role technology plays in a fabric or article of clothing. The practical application is explained in detail and numerous illustrations serve as clarification. Over 50 well-known designers, research institutes, companies and artists, among them Philips, Burton, MIT Media Lab, XS Labs, New York University, Hussein Chalayan, Cute Circuit or International Fashion Machines are introduced by means of their latest, often still unpublished, project, and a survey of their work to date. Given for the first time is a list of all the relevant information on research institutes, materials, publications etc. A must for all those wishing to know everything about fashionable technology.
Fairytale Fashion is uses technology to create a collection magical clothing in real life (with blooming flowers, transforming shapes, changing colors, etc.) for Feb. 2010. We share our work in weekly research and development web videos on our website FairytaleFashion.org so that the public can learn about new technology and be a part of the design process. Anyone can help us create the designs by answering the design question at the end of each video.
We are particularly looking for participation from classrooms, after school programs and girl education programs. If you have a class or group that would like to participate please contact us at contact@fairytalefashion.org.
I’ve been practicing with web video in previous posts to get my Fairytale Fashion project going. I’m still figuring out some of the challenges like the audio. And looking for a video intern.
The full FairytaleFashion.org site should be up on Monday. Weekly episodes will be going up every Monday. I’m starting next week with deployable structures.
HANDS-ON GET-UP are a collection of wearable structures designed specifically to inspire pro-active creativity, expressive movement and unexpected consequences. Whilst in residence at Eyebeam, I have been creating two parallel projects that express this working model. Both schemes incorporate the themes of body, technology and performance, as well as being inspired by my experiences here in New York City.
Project Walkway, this year's Girls Eye View program, was be taught by former Eyebeam resident Norene Leddy with current R&D OpenLab fellows Ayah Bdeir and Jessica Banks.
