Almost exactly a year ago I had the pleasure to introduce you to the Vega One collection from Canadian clothing designer Angella Mackey.

Angella acquired a diverse background such as new media art, electronics, fashion and product design, elements that enable her to create aesthetically delighting, wearable technology enhanced fashion.

Her 2012/13 collection, succeeding the Vega One rain-coat and cape, expanded into a all-season line of garments ranging from coats, capes and smocks to comfortable neck-wear accessories.

Each style features the Vega illumination, a soft, bright light accent to add a sparkle to the outfit, a sparkle doubling as little safety feature in low light condition.

Vega, based in Gothenburg, Sweden is planning to expand the retail option beyond the online shop which carries the new collection and move into old fashion, brick and mortar shops around the globe.

Most styles are ready-to-wear, off the rack with the option of made-to-measure.

Integrating light elements into clothing never ever fails to attract astonishment and the ‘wow’ effect when unsuspecting people come for the first time in contact with illuminated clothing.

I experienced this first hand while working on illuminated textiles, a rewarding feeling for the designer. What puzzles me is why textile illumination has not been more adopted by now by fashion brands.

There are a few exceptions like the gorgeous light emitting dresses from MOON Berlin and Cute Circuit and a range of stage-wear created by various designer for artists but besides this very limited availability it’s still dark in the fashion world.

How exiting illuminated fashion is has been once again demonstrated by fashion graduate student Caitleen Moloney at the CIT (Canberra Institute of Technology) in Australia last December.

For her final year project Caitleen designed five outfits featuring LED’s integrated into pockets that create indirect, soft light effects.

Caitleen Moloney does not see this type of fashion design ready for every day wear but is more interested in costume design for performing art and artists.

Is it because textile illumination is not yet developed to a point where it can be used for consumer products? If this is the case the challenge would be in the wearable tech community to do the homework and create reliable systems fit for use in ready-to-wear fashion.

Fashion represents a very emotional, luxury item in our life, it does not (only) fulfill a basic functional need. Fashion is allowed to dream, to imagine, to be playfully creative yet, in reality, our fashion in the ready-to-wear market is made from very traditional materials, the creativity is limited to cut and color variations.

How well received textile illumination can be … read the last part of the Canberra Times article featuring Caitleen Moloney’s illuminating collection.

Besides having cool songs what do have Take That, Will.I.AM, Rhianna, Bono and OK-Go in common? Their light fashion designer Moritz Waldemeyer.

Moritz Waldemeyer started to electrify and illuminate the fashion world by cooperating with Fashion design icon Hussein Chalayan back in 2006/07 with the Robotic Dress which was followed by a LED and laser light elements as part of the Haute Couture collection of Hussein Chalayan.

Based on the experience acquired during this cooperation Mortiz explored the show biz, lighting up performers on stage, integrating light show elements into a performers outfit by merging the on stage light show with the artist.

The latest video jacket designs for Take-That and Will.I.AM from Black Eyed Peas feature Mortiz’s in-house developed wearable LED video system, specially designed LED modules that are capable of displaying animations at video speed from a built in SD card in the Will.I.AM jacket or even a miniature video player in the jacket for Take That.

Dynamically changing light pattern on clothing is a fascinating, eye catching fashion design element that never fails to amaze people around.

Logically the entertainment industry is being at the forefront when it comes to utilize wearable light in it’s fullest and at the same time making the fans carving for owning such cool outfit.

Moving textile illumination from the stage into the mainstream wardrobe is the next big step for the wearable technology community. But this next big step might happen sooner than we think as history has shown many times before, the restless and creative mind of human beings always find a way to make the impossible happen.

Imagine the visual effect when people in the audience wear sound reactive outfit (see our blog post from yesterday) that interacts with the performer and the light show on stage – a new dimension of interaction of artists with their fan community.

Still in my catch up mode to hunt down interesting material for talk2myShirt I literally stumbled upon a beautiful textile dress made by Chung-Hay Luk and presented at the eTextile and Wearable Computing Showcase last May, the Sound Illuminating Dress.

The Sound Illuminating Dress is a cleverly designed strapless dress which made the technology involved part of the style decision. Part of the dress is kept in dark fabric while the other part containing EL (electroluminescent) wire at the seam is made from light, white color which wraps in an irregular shape around the front.

The light effect is activated by ambient sound picked up from a microphone. Instead of flashing the light Chung-Hay Luk choose to have a subtle, sophisticated, pulsating light intensity change in the rhythm of life music.

Watch the short video clip below you be surprised.

I have not been a big fan of EL wire designs up to now but seeing Chung-Hay Luk’s design I have to revise my low opinion about EL wire in garments – it’s a matter of aesthetic design understanding what a material can deliver.

Vega, the brightest star in the constellation Lyra and the fifth brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere gave the inspiration for Canadian clothing designer Angella Mackey who resides currently in Gothenburg, Sweden for her first illuminated fashion design, the Vega One.

The Vega One is a medium to lightweight Spring dress coat made of a satin finish 60% cotton and 40% polyester fabric and to justify the name – includes two sets of 2 super bright LEDs, one on the front and one on the back.

The light elements are nicely discrete integrated into the coats’ design and offer solid or flashing modes selectable via a switch hidden on the front of the coat.

The power for the electronics and LEDs comes from two button cell batteries which are build into Light Strip forming a soft unit that can be removed when the coat needs a cleaning.

The front LED light color is white while the color of the back is red. This color scheme indicates one of the options Angella designed  with the Vega One coat: for better visibility and safety. Or use the light elements for style/aesthetic purpose, adding sparkling, twinkling focus points to the coat.

To celebrate the launch of the Vega collection which will extend with the Vega cape and raincoat, Anglea Mackey’s shop offers a $100 discount from the full price of $449, valid until April 1st 2011!

It’s encouraging to see more and more products coming to the market that integrate some of the wearable technologies researchers, developers and innovators in the textile domain have been experimenting over the past decade.

The Vega One coat is made in Borås, Sweden, a small town just outside Gothenburg with a rich textile tradition and the University of Borås famous among wearable technologists for their activities in Smart Textile education and research.

Without pretending to be a oracle that knows what’s in the fashion stores of the future I do see light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to illuminated clothing.

The idea of illuminating clothing for aesthetic purpose has been around for some time and Cute Circuit started the commercialization of illuminated clothing earlier this year with their Twirkle collection.

2011 seems to see more light coming down the runway thanks to ‘Moon Berlin‘, a Berlin based fashion-label founded by Brigitte Franken and Christian Bruns with the aim to combine light technique with high fashion in a sensitive way.

Using light as a sophisticated design element to create many different aspects and effects, Moon Berlin cooperated with Stretchable Circuits, a spin-off from the Fraunhofer Institut which developed the soft circuit technique used in Moon Berlin’s first illuminated fashion collection which will be launched in 2011.

A sneak peek on MOON Berlin’s illuminated fashion can be seen in the video below.

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]

Two years ago Mary Huang, at that time student of Design|Media Arts department at UCLA started weaving and knitting with light.

The interview I have done with her was inspiring and shed already some light on her future relation with fashion and technology.

Fast forward into our present day, Mary’s Rhyme&Reason collection evolved technically up to the point at which she started a ‘made to order’ business enabling techno fashionistas to own and wear illuminated dresses with a magical light touch.

Each piece of her collection (scroll down on her Website and browse through the different styles) is handmade so every garment will be unique. Slight customizations to the design for each individual are also welcome.

Mary incorporates dozens of bright white LEDs into each garment with the connections made of conductive yarn woven through the knit or sewn onto the fabric for an invisible finish.

Included in the dress is a custom made Li-ion battery that lasts for around 8 hours of illumination as well as a battery charger. Making a dress takes around one month.

The prices range from around $ 600.- for a scarf to $2200.- for a coat.

Rhyme&Reason can be see on Sept 24 + 25 at the Center for Performance Research 361 Manhattan Avenue, Unit 1, Brooklyn, NY during the Indelible Dance performance.

The video below is a short teaser of Mary Huang’s Rhyme&Reason collection that captivates through the magic of illuminated fashion.

For fashionistas looking for the extraordinary wardrobe touch, Rhyme&Reason is something to consider adding to the growing Haute Tech collection of her wardrobe.

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]

One of the pioneers and trendsetter in the wearable technology fashion world, London based CuteCircuit has made their name by integrating new functionality into fashion through the use of smart textiles and micro electronics.

This integration has been recently demonstrated with the design of dresses for Katy Perry and Safura or the Galaxy Dress. To bring sparkling clothing to consumers CuteCircuit has opened their own online store offering technology enhanced clothing.

Rather then relaying on crystals releasing a sparkle when hit by a light beam, the Twirkle collection from CuteCircuit is the source of the sparkle, releasing a night sky star twinkle on a dress or shirt.

To ignite the sparkle you need to move, as more as you move as brighter you will sparkle and twinkle. I love this design twist by CuteCircuit to relate the light pattern to movements via a motion sensor.

The light sparkle effect is similar to the sparkle created by crystals that catch the surrounding light. The motion activation gives a more natural appearance, random light patterns rather than static, predefined and programmed light sequences that dent to be artificial and cheap looking light effects.

The Twirkle collection items run on basic coin cell batteries which are included in the retail price which ranges between $ 140.- and $ 187.- depending on the model.

The CuteStore is open for business and takes pre-orders with delivery by October, just in time for the darker season that need to be spiced up with a bit of sparkle coming from your shirt or dress.