Illuminating clothing, footwear or other fashion accessories inspire a growing number of designer who explore the possibilities of active light elements for fashion.

Italian-born fashion designer Francesca Castagnacci used the active light element as her inspiration to design Heels that contain fiber-optic material to emit subtle, classy soft color shades, not the usual, bright flashing color spots but discrete illumination.

Luminex, one of the leading companies that create optical fibers specifically to be used for fashion applications produces long, very thin strands of pure glass or plastic, no thicker than a human hair. These optical fibers are suitable to be woven together with conventional yarn to fabric structures.

The optical fibers themselves are not light emitting but need one or more LEDs on each end of the fiber or  bundle of fibers. By using RGB (Red, Green Blue) LEDs a simple program on an IC can created almost any color shade. The LED light travels through the optical fiber which is specially treated to allow light coming out along the fibers surface.

The effect is a subtile, almost mystical illumination. These illumination fibers combine with the design skills of people like Francesca Castagnacci bring sparkle to high end fashion objects.

[source: Yatzer via Ecouterre]

Color changing, light emitting textiles are captivating, they radiate sophistication and innovation. But to achieve a pleasant to look effect is very challenging form a technology point of view.

A collaboration between Joanna Berzowska at XS Labs and Maksim Skorobogatiy at the Advanced Photonic Structures Group, both based in Canada, formed the ‘Karma Chameleon‘ to research and develop ‘interactive electronic garments constructed out of a new generation of composite fibers that are able to harness power directly from the human body, store that energy, and then use it to change their own visual properties‘.

I love the subtile illumination effect fiber optics creates when woven into fabrics and integrated into clothing of wall decorations. The use of fiber optics, basically weaving thin strands of fiber optic, plastic like material together with conventional yarn is somewhat challenging. Illuminating fiber optic woven structures require to send through the different strands colored light from a light source such as LEDs.

It’s a complex design which might never be suitable for volume production but for made-to-order designs something to consider.

The photo shows an interactive garment with integrated silk and photonic band-gap fiber woven strips concealed within pleats, created by Joanna Berzowska, Maksim Skorobogatiy, Anne-Marie Laflamme, Marguerite Bromley and Marc Beaulieu.

Be sure you check out the remarkable work of this innovative, collaboration. I can already now imagine all the interesting uses of such materials, not only for clothing but for wall decoration, furniture cover to create a sophisticated, illuminated atmosphere.

[via: iHeartSwitch]

Cute Circuit seems to have found a bright spot in the showbiz by designing gorgeous looking, illuminate stage wear for artists.

The latest design from Francesca Rosella is a gorgeous looking illuminated dress worn by singer Safura, representing Azerbaijani at the Eurovision 2010 song contest.

The deep blue chiffon dress is equipped with small LEDs creating a multicolor display by amplifying the concept of the live scenery of the ‘Drip Drop’ stage act. A fabulous example how to include a performers dress into the light show on stage.

The theme of the song, which is visualized via the stage light design, is the element of water, from lonely drops to a powerful rainfall to a stormy ocean in line with the lyrics of Safura’s song ‘Drip Drop’.

The color play of the LEDs in the dress is activated via a wireless signal in sync with the deep blue hues symbolizing the living flow of the ocean at one point to a hot red glow visualizing the emotions in the song.

Get captivated from the mystic of the ocean and the LED dress  – watch the video below and see the full sparkle of this dress towards the end when Safura walks down the catwalk.

A BIG Thank You to our talk2myShirt fans, especially in and around Europe, we got over 200 emails since late Saturday pointing to this fabulous dress seen by a multi-million Eurovision audience in and outside Europe.

Although Safura didn’t win the contest she definitely won the talk2myShirt Best-Dress award at the Eurovision 2010 together with Francesca Rosella and Cute Circuit for the Best Dress Design.

Canadian designer-artist Valérie Lamontagne founded 3lectromode with the vision of innovating in the field of wearables by combining technology with customizable prêt-â-porter fashion.

Valérie and her small design group is focusing on the development of accessible wearables combining state-of-the-art technology and current fashion research, creating designs that resonate with our everyday needs as well as being sensitive to our environment.

Instead of creating design concepts that surprise and are lovely to look at, 3lectromode is commercializing the creations via their new online shop.

What’s more, you can either order the Asymmetrical Dress (in the photos) or the Symmetrical Dress as ready-to-wear for $500.- or as kit for $250.-

The kit contains everything needed for the eTextile seamstress to make an LED-embedded dress: Dress pattern and graphics printed on 100% cotton, lining pattern and circuit guides on Polyester blend, Conductive zipper, programmed LilyPad, 15 LEDs, conductive thread and batter inclusive charger.

I love this retail concept where one can chose to buy the complete functional and gorgeous looking dress or to use a kit for personalization adjustments.

The LED pattern will light up based on the selection you make when ordering the dress or kit: light sensor, temperature sensor or Accelerometer sensor.

A fabulous concept, design wise as well as business wise – it’s as unique as interactive clothing is in itself – ready for a Brave New World of fashion.

The list of top artists performing in illuminated stage outfit is growing rapidly, representing a trend that might swap over from the stage to the streets one day.

Rihanna and Moritz Waldemeyer did it again, lighting up the stage with a gorgeous looking LED dress for her ‘Last Girl On Earth tour‘ which kicked off last month in Belgium and will come to US in July and August.

Last year Rihanna’s Laser shoulder pad dress was a revolutionary, SciFi inspired stage outfit using laser beams to captivate the fans.

Moritz Waldemeyer, a pioneer in developing technology for haute couture with Fashion icons like Hussein Cahalayan, is pushing the boundaries between cutting edge technology and traditional textiles, challenging ‘old views’ by demonstrating the possibilities wearable technologies can add to stage wear but ultimately also to the fashion world.

Naturally the showbiz is always wide open for innovation, having the privilege of almost unlimited budget to create stage outfits and the advantage to use materials and technologies not yet ready for the general public.

But once we, the fans of these idols spot such cool outfits we do almost everything to get one at least in a scaled down, more affordable version. This in turn will trigger higher interest by designer to be more exploratory in creating light animated garments.

The dress and jacket design comes from Paris based couturier Alexandre Vauthier incorporating ‘… a unique combination of compressed gas systems and video capable LED circuits‘ as stated on Moritz’s Website.

I couldn’t find more specifics on that statement, sounds like another innovative leap in Moritz Waldemayer’s technology inspired fashion creations.

Last Monday night illuminated clothing was literally the highlight at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Met Costume Institute Gala when singer Katy Perry switched on her LED-dress made by London based Cute Circuit a pioneer of wearable technology development and design.

The floor-length, pale pink and white dress looked like a ‘play save’ fashion choice of Katy Perry until she hit the ‘on’ button, starting a color explosion all over her dress, taking the breath away from spectators.

Cute Circuit not only managed to get high profile attention from the fashion universe for their work but also did an excellent job in promoting, showing off the potential technology enhanced clothing has to offer. Especially when textiles illuminate in millions of color shades.

Taking their experience from the Galaxy Dress by using tiny, full color LEDs lined up on ribbons concealed underneath the top layer of the chiffon gown, Katy Perry’s dress is a scaled down version, reducing the 24,000 LEDs to 3,000 LEDs which makes the power supply wearable with a couple of  light weight LiPo batteries underneath the dress around the hips.

The light control electronics on a flex circuit board is hand embroidered on a layer of silk. A bit odd is the on/off switch: a relatively large push switch, usually seen in vintage automotive application, is placed inside the bra ….. kind of a show-stopper of this otherwise remarkable LED dress.

Illuminated clothing has made a bright impact the past few month among the show biz world as artists and performers like to use color changing, dynamic light effects on their stage outfit in addition to the light shows on stage.

The future of fashion looks now even brighter with Katy Perry’s LED dress from Cute Circuit, introducing technology enhanced fashion to the red carpet events of the fashion universe.

Paula Kassenaar and Paula Segura Meccia, students at the Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology in Holland took on the challenge to develop over the course of just one week during a module for an ‘exploration into textiles and electronics’ given by the faculty at the Wearable Senses division by the teachers Michel Peeters and Carl Meegens.

The astonishing result is the Skôn which means beautiful in Dutch dialect, and in Swedish Skön means nice or beautiful, reflecting both ladies nationality.

Besides this creative name which accurately reflects the beauty of their creation, a hoodie with a light-up edge around the hood framing the face of the wearer, amplifying her beauty.

After one day of experimenting on an old 70’s mechanical Passap knitting machine the team came up with a knitted variable resistor which changes the resistance while toying around with the front part of the hoodie. In sync with the playful hoodie touch the hoodie seams change the light intensity.

Under the hood of this interactive garment is a Arduino mini. The knitted resistor is connected via a pull-up resistor to an analog-in pin of the Arduino.

A digital pin-out of the Arduino sends a PWM (Pulse-width modulation) via a transistor to introduce the 12V source for the LED strip concealed in the seam of the hood. If you are interested into the Arduino source code – Paula Kassenaar told me she can make it available online – just drop a note in our comments.

Gordon Tiemstra (camera)
Elien Vergeer (model)

Amazing what the duo has done in just one week, a very appealing style to demonstrate the possibilities technology enhanced fashion have to offer. Playful, emotional, sensual – sensational.

Lady Gaga is not only famous for her hit songs like ‘Poker Face‘ or ‘Paparazzi‘ she is equally famous for her love to fashion experiments so it was only a matter of time until the Lady showed one of the most sophisticated stage outfits, the ‘Living Dress‘, while performing ‘So Happy I Could Die‘ at the Liverpool Echo Arena last week.

The ‘Living Dress’ magically parts at the front, revealing Lady Gaga’s legs.

The concept of shape altering clothing is around for some time, designer like  Hussein Chalayan, Di Mainstone, Kerry Jia Yi Lin, Ying Gao or recently Diana Eng have explored different concepts with various technologies to animate clothing.

Lady Gaga, like a growing number of artists, make use of technology enhanced clothing to add a new, visual dimension to their stage shows.

From the wearable electronic community point of view this trend is very welcome as it helps to communicate, to visualize the possible potentials of technology infused clothing.

We all know that whatever super stars are doing or wearing is hot and will one way or the other show up at fashion shops around the corner.

But there will be a catch: unlike textile illumination, shape changing clothing requires complex mechanics and electronics putting the challenge to wearable electronic designer and engineers to work out solutions usable for the hard world of fashion reality.

The first 70 seconds in the video below show the Living Dress in action:

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]

Lost Values a UK based company founded by designer-maker Elena Corchero, added to their innovative, technology enhanced collection a beautiful looking example how a little technology that has been around for a long time in not-so-sexy-looking roadwork jackets into classy, stylish hats and scarves fit for the high-street fashionistas.

The LFLECT Woolly Hat and LFLECT Wooll Scarf look like ordinary gear by day but comes night they start to illuminate due to the reflective thread used during the knitting of the hat and scarf.

Chose them for safety and higher visibility reason or for the style and wow effect they will create, the LFLECT products are an excellent example how creativity applied to old technology can transform everyday objects into gorgeous looking designs.

Lost Values offers each of these products for £65.00 ($105.-) with the option to chose from different hat designs, the knitting pattern as well as a large selection of colors.