Archive for the 'Catwalk' Category

Hussein Chalayan is the favorite designer of talk2myShirt as you can see on the extensive coverage we have done of his exiting creations on the Wearable Electronic side of his collections.

Chalayan is very consistent in proving again and again his love and artistic virtuosity in fusing high fashion with high technology.

I was already wondering what Chalayan has up his sleeve in this weeks ‘Ready-to-Wear’ Paris Fashion week and to me great relieve at the end, two models came out orbited by light points.

The moving spots of light symbolize the big-bang, the beginning of the universe. Chalayan is attracted to light, it’s is third creation of living, moving light incorporated into a dress.

First the LED dress where the light was coming from inside, then the Sparkling Laser dress where light reflected and exploding from crystals and now the ‘Big-Bang’ dress where lights orbiting the center of the universe - that means you the wearer of such dress

Note: all names of the dresses are my invention and no claim on my side they are correct.

Of course we found a video clip on YouTube (where else?) showing the ‘Big-Bang’ dress at the end of Chalayan out-of-this-world fashion show:

If you are in a hurry, go to the middle of the video where you can see the dresses in question.

There is certainly a trend visible - so to speak - to light up our clothing considering the many attempts to integrate light into jackets for visual affects like Kanye West or for information like O’Neill’s NavJacket.

Being a fashion artist, Chalayan is of course pushing the boundaries of ‘wearable’ but it’s the freedom of designers of his format to keep on pushing the rest towards more creative use of new materials to be used for our pleasure or maybe even function.

What’s left for us now is to find out who was the technical wizard again behind this creation? Any tip who could be behind the scene of this light spectacle is very welcome in the comments.

[via: Style.com]

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Only a few fashion designer have the insight and ability to combine high fashion with high technology. Di Mainstone is one of the shining stars of the Haute Tech Fashion. Her journey through the world of fashion and technology is mysterious at times, her work full of mystical elements that surprise and captivate the audience.

Di Mainstone is trained in fashion design at Central Saint Martins College of Art, London. Her interactive couture garments playfully explore human behavior by weaving soft-technologies into a fashion aesthetic.

Di’s eccentric style caught the attention of press and celebrities during a design partnership with cult UK labels Soochi and Choosi. Her attire sold internationally at established boutiques such as Harvey Nichols, Selfridges and Urbanoutfitters.

In 2005, Di joined Sara Diamond at the Banff New Media Institute to create a series of electronic couture garments. She quickly found her new passion for electronic textiles and teamed up with Joey Berzowska at XS Labs.

Together they produced Scorpions, Di’s Haute Tech range which has been exhibited during many high profile event on Wearable Electronic and Interactive Fashion.

My personal favorites are her designs for the Skorpions project, a range of interactive garments that use shape memory materials to change the shape = look of the garments dynamically as a reaction of the wearer and the environment.

SKWRATH is the model I give 5 stars (see image above). It is a quilted leather bodice, constructed out of stony leather lined with blood red silk. The abdomen is made up of three interlocking leather segments or plates, embroidered with threads of shape memory alloy, which are activated through a electronic board to contract and curl back to reveal deep slashes of red silk.

ENELEON is constructed out of heavy hand-made felt, creamy leather, and reflective lamÈ lining. It is shaped like a large bilateral symmetric pod that encloses the body from front and back. Each side features six scattered scales that rise and lower in order to reveal a mirrored lining. The movement is activated by beaded shape memory alloy coils, controlled through the integrated electronics.

LUTTERGILL is built out of soft quilted cotton with an elegant, cocoon-like silhouette, stitched to mirror the contours of the female form. Several seams slowly roll open and peel apart to reveal and release slices of iridescent color. The movement of these gill-like details is enabled by filaments of shape memory alloy stitched into the inside of the fissures.

GLUTUS is an elegant off-the-shoulder dress that uses a combination of silk, leather, and felt to outline a streamlined, organic silhouette. A sculptural panel of leather attaches to the left breast and swoops around the right shoulder and the face to become a large leaf-shaped hat. The hat is embroidered with filaments of the shape memory alloy Nitinol on the top and the underside, so that the leaf can curl up and down around the head, as if trying to envelop and consume the face of the host.

Di created an impressive and mysterious range of, let’s say ‘conventional’ fashion in term of Wearable Electronic but also and that’s closer to our topic, interactive garments.

Too much to show all of it here, so hop over to her site and explore more about the work of Di Mainstone, the shining star of Haute Tech.

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Hussein Chalayan surprised again during the Paris Fashion week the audience with ‘Technology meets high Fashion’ by showing a Sparkling Crystal Dress.

To underline his ability and willingness to challenge traditional aspects of fashion, Chalayan bended the rules a bit by deciding to show his collection in the from of a short movie rather then with models on the runway.

If you are interested to watch the complete show from Chalayan on video, showstudio.com has it for your viewing pleasure.

Here on talk2myShirt we are most interested in our coverage on the Sparkling Crystal Dress Chalayan presented at the end of his ‘08 S/S collection in which he used again technology to create a new fashion dimension.

The Crystal Dress (my naming) is an evolution based on Chalayan’s Mechanical Dress and his LED Dress. It uses hundreds of servo motor driven tiny lasers diodes.

The laser diodes are integrated into the garments, illuminating the Swarovski crystals in the garments and extend so the dresses visually into space.

The effect is an explosion of laser beams and light effects the make the crystal look like living, flowing lava.

The technical wizard behind this Wearable Electronic high fashion piece is no one less than Moritz Waldemeyer who has worked with Chalayan before on the LED Dress.

The result of their cooperation is a stunning light/laser show radiated from the dress that changes continuously the light effects and reflections with the movement of the wearer of the dress.

Swarovskisparkles.tv has a video you must see to experience the magic effect of Chalayan’s creation.

Another movie available on Swarovskisparkles.tv is the ‘Making of’ the Crystal Dress. Watch Chalayan and Waldemeyer how they created this fashion artwork.

A fabulous concept Magician Chalayan and Wizard Waldemeyer pulled out of their heads and proved once more that technology and fashion can create a new dimension to our future clothing.

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Much was written about the Mechanical Dress and the LED-Dress from Hussein Cahalayan but you ever wondered how it was made?

For my part, I wanted to know a little bit more about the background and looked underneath the two dresses.

It turns out that a young smart guy from Germany, Moritz Waldemeyer is the technical wizard behind the fabulous creations from fashion oracle Hussein Cahalayan.

Moritz moved to London to study business administration but discovered robotics during an internship at Bosch. He switched to mechatronics and landed a research and development job at Philips where he worked for 3 years. ‘We did some things that were considered pretty crazy at the time,’ he says. ‘Like a bra for female athletes embedded with sensors to monitor their heart rate.’

Not that crazy anymore but available by Numetrex for example.

Waldemeyer says: ‘Mechatronics is simply a combination of mechanics and electronics’. ‘It’s a relatively new discipline, but almost everything we use nowadays — a washing machine, the electric windows in a car — is automated in one way or another.’

This special knowledge got him together one day in 2006 with Hussein Cahalayan and ended up building those famous Wearable Electronic Fashion dresses.

As a demonstration of changing shapes in fashion, Chalayan wanted to end his show last year in Paris with six dresses and two hats that would transform themselves electromechanically on the models along the catwalk in real time.

Confronted with that challenge, most engineers might say, ‘Get lost,’ but Waldemeyer devised the control electronics for a complex set of micromotors with tiny pulleys and nearly invisible cables.

At the Spring/Summer 2007 fashion show, the concluding group of Chalayan dresses and hats in the promenade spectacularly changed shapes; and for the finale, the ultimate hat magically raised the costume below like a curtain on threads and absorbed it, leaving the model naked.

In the second collaboration with Cahalayan for the Autumn/Winter 2007/8 collection, designer-engineer Waldemeyer produced dresses with full video capability: each is covered with 15,000 individually controllable LEDs, meaning the surface of the dresses can display video imagery.

Below a collection of photos from Mortiz’s Website on how the LED-Dress looks from underneath:

Those two dresses will be remembered as the first great works towards a Wearable Electronic Haute Couture, created by two great visionaries: Hussein Cahalayan and Moritz Waldemeyer.

[infos from: NYTimes, Metropolismag, Dezeen]

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Angel Chang is a innovative Fashion Designer who blends technology and fashion in the most advanced and beautiful way we have seen so far.

The way she thinks about fashion and technology is remarkable, head over to the write up we have posted back in January or to her site.

Hussein Cahalayan is doing a great job in experimenting with technology and fashion but Angel Chang is creating real world clothing that look like ‘out of this world’. Her Fall 2007 collection include great looking dresses with iPod controls. We like the way she integrates almost invisible those controls. This is what makes her creations outstanding compared to the more ‘traditional’ approach of the iPod Jackets we have seen so far.

Angel Chang is not ‘only’ using electronic functions for integration, another part of her collection has Thermochromic ink. This Thermochromic ink print pattern change their intensity/visiblity depending on the surrounding temperature. Those parts of the fabric that are closer to the skin are warmer and the print will ‘disappear’. Other parts that have less skin contact will stay clear visible.

We like love this playful use of innovative technologies in clothing in her creations. It is completely in line with Angel’s philosophy we appreciate so much:

What we need are experiments and those who are willing to experiment. We designers are too safe today — relying on the trends of the past rather than innovating for the future. - Angel Chang

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I have spend today walking the show floor of Avantex 2007 in Frankfurt to give you a first impression of the many many models on display.

Avantex is focusing on the visualization but also on the practical aspects of innovative and future clothing. Techtextil which is next door, is mainly focused on the manufacturing part of the garment creation process.

My overview focuses on the Avantex itself, providing a view of the things to come soon into the Wearable Electronic market.

From left to right: O’Neill h4 range for 2007/08 Jacket with Eleksen textile switch, O’Neill h4 collection with Fibretronic ‘Fidler’ switch and right photos the Zegna iJacket, Leather edition - beautiful, just beautiful.

This range of photos show from left to right: Bagir/Eleksen new collection of men’s business suit, Aquatry Jacket (on Eleksen booth) and Philips Lumalive vest on the right.

That range of photos above show from left to right: Rosner new style, Lodenfrey Jacket (excellent look and style for outdoors in fashion) and Lodenfrey ‘Lederhosen’ as seen before.

Last range of photos above from left to right: Sunload’s solar power bag (looks even cooler than on images), TITV-Geiz Bluetooth skiing glove and on the right side, car seat with textile controls for seat adjustment also from TITV-Geiz.

This is just a ‘teaser’ and more in-depth information on each of those products will follow over the coming days. I need to get fit again for another exiting day on Avantex tomorrow to collect more information and photos for your viewing and information enjoyment.

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Hussein Cahalayan did again surprise and excite the Wearable Electronic Fashion world again with his latest creation presented during the Milan Design Week last weekend.

The last time, Hussein has surprised the Fashion world was during the summer/spring 2007 show last autumn in Paris with the mechanical dress.

This time, Hussein presented a Video Dress that is even more exiting, showing a time lapse of a rose opening and closing up, in a spectacular display of colors and light, created from 15.000 LEDs that are embedded in the fabric.

Though all those LEDs will need quite some power and might not be very practical, it is for sure a brilliant idea and concept that is very pleasant to look at. Hussein Cahalayan truly understands on how to use and combine electronic functionality and technology to create highly fashionable dresses.

In the video below, you can see how the light effects work – gorgeous.

How long will it take to have such a beautiful dress on your next dinner party? To bridge this gap, however long that will be, you could always go to Milan where this Video dress is on display in the Corso Como Gallery.

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The Milano Moda Uomo (Milan Menswear) Spring 2008 is poised to tackle Menswear 2.0 as it elevates fashion into the 21st century.

Menswear 2.0 sounds like geek speak. The internet now has Web 2.0, which means that it has evolved since it burst into the scene during the 1990s and literally changed the way we live and communicate, Menswear 2.0 also means taking it into an entirely new level.

Last month during the ‘Fashion in Motion‘ show, Zegna, a well known brand of men’s luxury clothing participated in the runway show that featured the most innovative and creative products and prototypes in Wearable Electronic.

FashionWindows has an excellent article posted about Fashion and Technology = Wearable Electronic. Here are a few statements from this article:

Zegna’s iJacket, a luxury sport jacket that features an interior jacket pocket that stores the iPod … the controls of the iPod is located on the sleeves … Functional? Yes! Stylish? Definitely. It’s Zegna!

To most fashionistas, this is just a novelty, something that the geeks of Silicon Valley just imagine. But, when you have a major player like Zegna experimenting with this new technology and combines its sartorial prowess, perhaps, this is not just a fad, but also the way of the future.

Another interesting views:

And here’s a prediction: menswear will incorporate these high tech devices before womenswear for two reasons: (1) men in general are more interested in gizmos and gadgets; and (2) innovations in menswear are subtler and usually not always apparent to the naked eye.

Incorporating Eleksen’s ElekTex, a smart fabric touchpad in the Zegna iJacket did not change the silhouette at all. And, if you don’t look closely, you will not even know it was there.

Very well, that’s music in our ears, and the reason for us and talk2myShirt to exist.

Move over to FashionWindows to read the complete article, it’s definitely a very interesting read.

[via: FashionWindows]

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