Woven Apparel Fabrics

This chapter considers the different woven manufacturing processes used in the production of apparel fabrics. It details the mainapparel fabric types and looks at the key performance requirements of those fabrics, in relation to both the weave structure and the fibre type. The chapter then goes on to briefly describe important considerations in the design process and the various end uses for woven fabric. Application examples detailed towards the end of the chapter include fabrics that are timeless classics and fabrics that are established fashion favourites. Key words: apparel, design, applications, performance, fabric aesthetics

Performative Wearables: Bodies, Fashion and Technology

This thesis argues that wearables are inextricably performative. By this I mean that performance—human and nonhuman performance such as those encountered both on and off stage, as well as social performance and the performance of fashion and technology—contribute to the creation and meaning of wearables. With this aim in view, the thesis explores performance from four research angles: a framing of the birth of wearables in a performative context; a theoretical analysis of wearables as somatically, aesthetically, and technologically constituted via the performative; a historical back-dating of pre-computational wearables stemming from Modernist performative fields; and the in-situ case studies of contemporary wearables creations. It is my goal to demonstrate that wearables are performative across transversal timelines, materials, styles, fabrication processes, and body expressions. Using references from the art-research labs currently involved in developing fashion-tech and wearables—as an important counterbalance to industry’s contributions to wearables—I ask this central question: how can concepts of performance elucidate wearables? I look toward performance as a key thread that follows wearables’ beginnings to the current, contemporary technological culture embedded in media arts and experimental contributions to the field. Why? Because wearables are more than the sum of the technologies they incorporate, they are the result of their admixtures of fashion, bodies, display, and transformation (in both human and technological form). In short, wearables are active, (a)live, and hence both the objects themselves and the individuals wearing them participate in the co-creation of their performance. Performance is complex—striding as it does across disciplines from the technological and engineering; to the human and unscripted—and for this reason it is richly suited to the challenges encountered when describing wearables. Performance is the key pathway, in my opinion, through which we can gain stronger insight into the stakes, meanings, messiness, desires, and technological innovations that are being developed in wearables in artistic labs past, present and future

Smart Second Skin and Scent Whisper at Siggraph 2005

The annual Cyber Fashion Show was hosted by Psymbiote, the technology-clad cyborg and produced by Charmed Technology. The show featured a variety of wearable computers, head-mounted displays, smart clothes, luminous clothing and accessories, futuristic club wear, and CAD/CAM jewellery and bodywear. It also featured contributions from the Banff New Media Institute, the MIT Media Lab, WIN Wearable Fashion Group, ViewStation, (whisper research group), the Wearable Fashion Group at Keio University, SONY CSL Paris, The Innovation Centre @ Central St. Martin's College of Art and Design, CuteCircuit, eMagin, Elise Co, Tina Gonsalves, Laura Bardier, and a number of other experimental artists, progressive designers, and hi-tech corporations. The wide-ranging selection of products, innovative prototypes, and unique creations projected the future realms of body-technology assimilation. Scent Whisper ‘Scent Whisper’ is a wireless jewellery set inspired by the comic hero Spiderman. It can be worn by two people and works by the first user whispering a secret into the spider’s abdomen which has a humidity sensor embedded in a brooch. A message is ‘scent by a wireless web’ to a the second user wearing a wireless bombardier beetle brooch. The beetle brooch retaliates by spraying a scent (or poison) to a lover (or enemy) dependent upon the response from the humidity sensor embedded in the spider. This jewellery device is able to dispense airborne nano-litre sized droplets of fragrance at about 20,000 droplets per second using lab-on-a-chip technology that allows efficient scent delivery SmartSecondSkin The SmartSecondSkin Dress is a conceptual garment that concentrates on a more active approach to fashion offering direct life-enhancing and analgesic assistance through different mechanisms’ whilst soothing, stimulating, motivating or invigorating the wearer. The dress demonstrates a new way to deliver fragrances for health, wellbeing and stress-reduction. It mimics the human body, in particular the circulation and nervous system, senses and scent glands. The dress interacts with human emotions whereby the aroma dimension is an integral part of the wearer’s sensory experience. It is made from two layers of while organza silk with medical tubes in-between, containing coloured liquid that demonstrate a selection of different fragrances embedded within the garment. The fragrances are diffused depending on the different moods and emotions of the user. The tubes represent an “aroma rainbow”, so that the fabric gives the impression it is creating an olfactory experience. The fundamental advantage is the use of body sensors to determine ‘colour therapeutic’ scent release when a person is stressed, with the ability to shield a ‘Scentient Being’ (the user) from a negative mood they should be protected from. The benefits are for everyone, as recent research shows that fragrance has a positive effect on brain activity to improve mental and physical health. The dress therefore enhances mental and physical well-being, whilst acting as a medium for communicating thoughts or emotions through smell, our most ancient and primitive sense

Wearable technology industry: challenges and opportunties in the European market

Wearable technology is a new industry which is develop. Smartwatches, activity trackers are done explains of these devices. In this new field, fashion and technology work together to create successful products with limitless function