Ying Gao is a fashion designer and professor of design at UQAM from the Université du Québec presents her latest collection that includes 3 interactive, intelligent garments at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec between June 9th and August 28th 2011

The garments respond to sound, motion or light by changing their shape and style elements.

Ying Gao sees her designs as highly conceptual, obviously not as practical as we might wish but such design and technology explorations are one of the stepping stones for the ‘must have’ of tomorrows fashion.

As we have posted earlier under the headline of ‘Phneumatic Fashion‘, Ying Gao investigates the possibilities and opportunities shape shifting, transforming clothing could one day transform the fashion world.

Together with fashion designers like Hussein Chalayan, Di Mainstone and Kerry Jia Yi Lin, Ying Gao is among the pioneers of interactive fashion design, clothing that changes the shape in sync with our life or maybe one day in response to critical, health harming situations in our urban jungle.

Why not – we promoted already the surgical face mask to a fashion statement, why not the dress or jacket as well?

To give you a visual idea how beautiful integrated, soft interactivity works, check out the short video clip below featuring the ‘Walking City Dress 1′ by Ying Gao:

[via: Dexigner]

‘Haute Tech’: Turning the Lights On is the headline of a recent article in the Fashion & Style section of The New York Times, featuring the fashion illumination designs by Moon Berlin, a Haute Tech fashion design house founded by Brigitte Franken and Christian Bruns.

It looks to me as wearable illumination technology is putting a spotlight on wearable technology,  generating greater public awareness. Not really a surprise to me – presenting textile illumination never fails to ignite excitement and imagination of people.

Clothing with active light elements that radiate instead of reflect light, light elements that response to movement of the wearer or other stimuli touches peoples emotions, pleasant emotions such as surprise, curiosity, joy and smiles.

I am not a fashion expert who evolved into a hybrid between the two worlds, the technology and fashion but may vision of the past might become soon reality as I can clearly see that certain theologies like the textile illumination will become soon part of a fashion designers tool/material box to choose from when designing the next collection.

Moon Berlin’s first collection includes skirts, blouses, dresses and even handbags each featuring beautifully designs illumination elements giving them a sophisticated, techno-savvy look perfectly blending into our digital age society.

According to the NYT article the prices range between €1,000 for a silk shirt and go up to $2,750 for a gown. A price point not for the everyday outfit but these are gorgers looking high street fashion designs and the price is not (only) related to the integrated technology.

source: The New York Times

If you are inspiring fashion designer with parents working in the engineering field then it is almost pre-programmed that you will become very likely a fashion-technology designer like Vega Wang.

China born Vega Wang, a graduate of BA Fashion Design Womenswear in Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, got her calling for technology enhanced clothing while watching the BBC documentation ‘Deep Blue’.

The colorful life of sea creatures in the deep dark ocean impressed her so much to dedicate the design for her first collection to this magical light play of string rays and other deep sea creatures as design accent.

Being a design student of the 21st century she knew of course about light emitting textile designs, mostly made by using LEDs but she did not like the thickness of these components.

Consulting her engineering parents she got the tip of using EL foils which are commonly used in car dashboards, signage displays or sometimes safety harnesses as they are slim and able to light up evenly larger areas.

The result is a illuminated clothing collection called ‘Into the Deep‘ playing with deep blue illumination around the various dresses of this collection.

Watch the video below, showing a interview with Vega Wang and see how Vega has put the light into her collection.

Re-creating the biological light effects of the Deep Blue ocean creatures on the catwalk is a truly magical experience.

[via: Electricfoxy, video and images via: The Creator Project]

Belonging to the new generation of fashion-tech designer, Anouk Wipprecht understands very well how to make use of technology to re-invent fashion design. Fashion design, used to provoke, to challenging but also connecting to social values has always been at the forefront of fashion design.

Using technology like Anouk Wipprecht opens up almost unimaginable possibilities for fashion designer to push the boundaries of the interaction between our body, the environment and our social values.

Anouk who is still at the early stage of her career as Fashion-tech designer created exceptional Haute-Tech designs during her student years like the Cat-Bag or the self-painting Pseudomorph Dress.

‘Intimacy Black‘, her latest creation is using e-foil which transforms from black to transparent. Anouk’s design enables the wearer to engage in a wholly ‘super-natural’ experience with her own skin.

Anouk based the ‘Intimacy Black’ on Daan Roosegaarde ‘e-fashion’ work which acts like a second skin that transforms the body of the wearer into an interface.

The Intimacy dresses are made using wireless, interactive technologies and smart foils that become transparent when electrified. The distance between a spectator and the garment determines the garments’ level of transparency.

The team working on the Intimacy project consist of Daan Roosegaarde, Maartje Dijkstra, Anouk Wipprecht, V2_ Lab (Simon de Bakker, Stan Wannet, Piem Wirtz) and Studio Roosegaarde (Peter de Man, João Carneiro).

Read more about the Intimacy e-fashion project at V2_

It looks like CuteCircuit is heading into a bright fashion future with their recent launch of the twinkling Twirkle Shirt collection and soon to be launched M-Dress.

The latest Haute-Tech dress CuteCircuit is preparing to launch is according to Grazia the K-Dress. I guess the ‘K’ of this dress comes from Katy Perry’s sparkling dress CuteCircuit made for her red carpet appearance during the Met Gala of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The K-Dress is a scaled down version, using less LEDs but from my perspective look gorgeous with the light element running down one side of the dress, pleasantly to look at.

UK retailer Selfridges announced to exclusively launch the K-Dress as part of its Christmas offer.

According to information from Selfridges ‘… the lights in the dress can create a stunning dynamic range of colors fully controlled by the wearer using the tiny push button controller.’

The light up element  of the K-Dress is capable to display waves of color shades, changing the intensity of the light from discrete to eye-catching, in short, creating a magical style element controlled via a tiny button on the dress.

Knowing myself how challenging the integration of LED light elements into clothing is I am truly amazed how soon CuteCircuit made it happen to bring such sophisticated, technology enriched fashion not only on stage put make it available to the general public, to feel and be like a star by wearing it.

The K-Dress will retail for £1,350 or around $2,100.- a steep price point at first look but for this type of high fashion wardrobe, a small amount for a very unique wardrobe item.

[via: StyleGuru]

Last week’s Fairytale Fashion Show at Eyebeam set a sparkling crown onto Diana Eng‘s extraordinary exploration into technology enhanced fashion.

Regrettable I was not able to organize myself in a way to witness this event in person but with the images and videos becoming available I can very well connect to the magical experience Diana’s electrifying fashion creates.

Diana send over the runway dresses full of sparkling light and dresses shift their shape – a dream for every fashionista.

Remarkable is the shape shifting technique she developed: origami style folded fabric animated via shape shifting wires (memory alloys), creating a beautiful, sophisticated effect on the Puff Sleeve Jacket.

The Twinkle Dress and Shirt are a excellent example of how to integrate the technology into the style of a garment (instead of hiding it). The hand embroidered circuit and sewable circuit board, the Twinkle Pad paint vivid rainbow colors on the garments.

And my favorite winner is: the El wire dress, an Aqua silk chiffon organically draped dress with electroluminescent wires integrated in the edges. The EL wires illumination is controlled by an accelerometer. Battery and electronics are integrated into a 3-D printed neck piece.

The soft EL wires flow with the silk chiffon creating an almost out-of-this-world elegance.

Diana Eng established herself with this Fairy collection as one of the masters of technology enhanced fashion who want to elevate their work above the mainstream, who like to explore the potential advanced soft electronics technologies and clothing build new synergies.

More photos from the Fairytale Fashion Show can be found via the Flickr photo stream of See-ming Lee.

Check out Diana’s Fairytale Fashion showing background information of the different technologies she used for her latest Haute Tech collection.

Diana Eng‘s fabulous project Fairytale Fashion which I highlighted last November is reaching it’s final stage, the Fairytale Fashion Show at Eyebeam on February 24, 7-9pm

Models will show Diana’s Haute Tech creations to the music from hacked video game consoles. A technology enriched fashion show demonstrating the potential of wearable electronics.

The Fairytale Fashion Collection utilizes technology to create magical yet (almost) ready to wear clothing. Electronics, mechanical engineering, and mathematics are weaved into fabrics to create clothing with animated, blooming flowers, changing colors and transforming shapes.

Diana started Fairytale last October and investigated various technologies and techniques, inviting wearable electronic enthusiast to give their views and opinions.

Fairytale Fashion was created with the support of Eyebeam Art and Technology Center nonprofit.

If you are in or around NY next Wednesday, check out if you can grab one of the limited seats for the fashion show by following this link.

[via: CraftZine]

Dutch designer Wendy Legro uses light as style element in a coat design which radiates simplicity and minimalistic sophistication.

Her LED coat design features folds that open and close during movements. Inside the folds are LEDs which light up, illuminating the folds and the surrounding area.

One of the most beautiful textile light designs I have come across. No flashiness  and geeky but showing the technology savviness of the wearer.

Adding light elements to clothing is a delicate balance between cheap looking, loud shouting light flashes and the soft sophistication fashion design demands.

Light effects do not automatically become subtle, colorful plays on the garment by covering LEDs with textile. The light integration has to flow seamlessly with the garments design, the light element has to be part of the design much like the selection of fabrics, texture and colors, the cut and other trimming elements.

Designer like Lynne Bruning, Alison Lewis, Marina Polakoff and Wendy Legro understand very well how to merge light with fashion design to create mystically  beautiful dresses.

[via: Fashioning Technology]

In our series of introducing the prototypes on stage during the Sept 25  ‘Smart Textile Salon‘, a jointed European workshop organized by the European projects SysTex and Proetex, we have a sneak peek at the Illuminative Sonic Top by Travis Li, currently Research Assistant at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

The ‘Illuminative Sonic Top’, inspired by the aesthetic forms and functions of a ceiling lighting has been transferred and transformed into a chick fashion accessory which is able to sense the changing sound waves of the surrounding environment and translates it to sparkling light flashes.

The prototype, shown during the Smart Textile Salon exhibition, has 128 blue, yellow purple and white LEDs embedded to display different patterns corresponding to the change of the volume and sound frequency.

Sound is detected via an embedded microphone in the chest area receiving the sound signals which are then amplified by the pre-amplifier circuits for further processing.

The LEDs and processing circuit are powered by three 9V batteries which will last for about 2 hours in full interactive mode.

Travis envisions this concept could be interesting for performing artists on the stage, I could not agree more with him but to my humble opinion, this interactive sparkle would look great on the dance floor or evening gowns alike.

Hot, Haute Tech news just arrived in our inbox about the Smart Textiles Salon held in Ghent, Belgium on Sept. 25

The most exiting exhibits on show will be the Avantex award winning Klight, designed and developed by Mareike Michel and made in a cooperation between the STELLA project and the Fraunhofer IZM.

During the Smart Textile Salon its ‘brother and sister’, the Pneuma and Dis.appear light dress will be on stage as well. Pneuma and Dis.appear have been made as part of a project at the Institute of Fashion and Textile Design of the University of the Arts, Berlin and the Fraunhofer IZM, called e-Motion.

UPDATE/clarification: we got additional information as well as corrections regarding the Haute Tech dresses. Firstly, the technology for all three dresses was developed by a group of researchers (Christian Dils, Manuel Seckel and René Vieroth) from Fraunhofer IZM and TU Berlin.

Fashion design student Mareike Michel created the interactive dress Klight. For the e-MOTION project, the students Theresa Lusser (dis.appear coat) and Synne Frydenberg (pneuma) created the concept and the design.

The e-MOTION project has published a very nice project summary. As update bonus, here is the video of e-MOTION:

Besides this fabulous dresses there is a long list of highly interesting exhibits:

• Illuminative Sonic Top presented by T. LI from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University
• SHHH…, Amplifying Textiles presented by B. Greinke, Central St. Martins College of Art and Design
• Wearable CO2 sensor presented by T. Radu, Clarity research centre – Dublin City University
• Emotion Jacket presented by F. van Abeelen, Philips Research
• ITcares Demonstrator presented by N. Jungbecker, RWTH Aachen University
• Pressure activated electroluminescent fabric presented by R. Marchesi, Texe SRL
• Transitional Stripes presented by S. Robertson, Heriot-Watt University
• BIOTEX – Bio-sensing textiles for healthcare & The Smart Sweat-Band presented by F. Benito-Lopez & S. Coyle, Clarity research centre – Dublin City University
• Proetex Firefighter Jacket presented by N. Walker, iXscient
• Dynamic light transfer – The textile that sees you and blinks back to you presented by E. Heimdal, Technical University of Denmark
• Conducting textile platform based on novel e-fibers, presented by M. Heuberger, D. Hegemann, K. Cherenack Empa & ETH Zürich
• FiltertheFilth presented by C. Albert, Central St. Martins College of Art and Design

A hands-on session called ‘Tool Time‘ is also running during the Smart Textiles Salon, operated by Mika Satomi who will show participants how to work with wearable technologies.

A long and highly interesting list but there is still more to come, so we heard. Stay tuned for more updates around the Smart Textiles Salon in Ghent and book your ticket now, it will be interesting to see all those projects close up and chat with their creator.

Registration can be done via the Smart Textile Salon Website.