e-Textile Lego: bYOB

A team of very creative people developed back in 2004 a kind of e-Textile Lego: the bYOB (build Your Own Bag) concept which essentially consists of a set of intelligent fabric patches that can be combined to form different bags or other fashion accessories.

The different, smart fabric patches contain different functions like different Lego blocks have different functions and it is up to the creativity of the user to replicate existing products or form completely new designs and functions.

It’s the ultimate customization, giving almost limitless options to configure and reconfigure as, like with Lego blocks, a once formed and used design can be taken apart in the single patches (blocks) and are ready to form a new object.

A brilliant idea that deserves a revival considering the advances in e-textiles and wearable technologies that have been developed since the creation of bYOB in 2004.

The visionary team from the Object-Based Media Group at the MIT Media Lab, Gauri Nanda, Adrian Cable and V. Michael Bove Jr. in an advisory role went even a step further in defining and shaping interactive clothing by envisioning a ‘conversation between a handbag, a scarf and a dress‘.

‘As a woman is about to leave her house, her handbag may solicit the weather forecast from the humidity sensor on its fellow smart curtain.

It might deliver the news of an impending downpour by saying “I think it might rain. Go get your umbrella.” And after deliberating with her coat pocket, the handbag may use ambient light to caution the user if she’s forgotten her cell phone.‘

Our future wardrobe and bags, items we definitely will not forget before leaving the house, can help us to make sure items we do forget occasionally like cell-phone, key or the umbrella is taken care off by our second skin – the intelligent clothing that checks by itself is everything is present.

Below video shows how the bYOB modules connect:

Maybe one day our clothing takes care of our fashion-style where the handbag cries: ‘don’t wear those shoes with me‘ or the dress tells you ‘no way to go with that bag‘. Smart clothing will help us to leave home in perfect style and we don’t mix things that do not get together – fashion wise.

PS: it’s not just women who forget things or miss-mix outfit, intelligent clothing is for men as helpful as for women.

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