Technology and Fashion – SXSW.
This is a subject close to my heart. We've done a fair bit of work with smart clothes and calm displays. It was introduced by Ping Fu, she's CEO at a company called Geomagic. They make high end 3D sanning software that's used everywhere for the space programme to archeology. This was about clothes though, and she had assembled a few leading people from the smart clothes community.
First Ping herself talked about how 3D scanning and printing is being used in creative and beautiful ways.
She gave the example of a beautifully crafted laser cut prosthetic leg. As she said, they usually look more like aircraft landing gear than anything you'd want to adorn yourself with. Why shouldn't they be beautiful and custom made and custom fitted. With todays 3D scanning and printing technology its possible.
Here's a sporty little number:
Fashion designer Iris Van Herpen uses 3D printing technology and other advanced processes to make clothes. Here's one where she wanted the model to look like she'd been splashed with water:
Next up, Sheridan Martin. She does research for XBox. She made this, "You are what you tweet" dress. I think you can tweet from the keyboard on it, and I think you can tweet it. It was projecting words onto the inside of the dress at least.
Alison Lewis from Agent of Presence was cool. She was definitely on the pure aesthetic side of things. This technology doesn't have to be useful, it can just be about beauty or emotion. I like that approach. She showed a pair of 3D printed Jimmy Choo shoes, which dispelled any ideas about technology and fashion necessarily being dorky.
My favorite thing of her's though was a dress she called "Presence of Heart" that lit up in unison with the heart beat of the wearer. Dead simple and quite sweet I thought. the method used for lighting this one up was a very powerful LED and optic fibres to spread the light through the fabric.
Last was Janet Hanson from Enlighted Design. She pretty much makes all the light up clothing you ever see in pop videos and gigs.
These are all great, but they are designed for one-off or limited use. She pre-empted people asking about whether consumer versions were possible, and she yes, but there are things to consider. The main problem with the Electro-Luminescent fibre is that it's quite fragile and they don't like being bent around much. So in her designs she tries to avoid bendy areas like knees and elbows. She reckons that consumer versions will be possible, but we have to really tailor them the the material. In fact she recommended wearable accessories like necklaces or bracelets etc. We'll see.