Fluid Dress

This is a video of a fluid dress. It's 600 ft. of knitted tubing powered by a pump located in the backpack. Check it out: http://vimeo.com/16871362

Artist creates themed dress sculptures in all 50 states

Nevada's Casino Chip Dress

see more

Intelligent Textile Pants for the Elderly

Physorg published an article describing the work of a Virginia Tech engineering team which designed pants that contain various sensors and transmitting technologies which integrate the monitoring and motion activity of the wearer. The pants are built specifically to detect motion patterns indicative of someone falling.

see here

DJ Hoodie

Developed by Mika Satomi and Clemens Pichler, DJ Hoodie is a pair of conjoined wearables that allow two performers to engage in a DJ battle.

Mixing the old with the new, the hoodies function as a wearable interface used to sample and alter sounds from cassette tapes.

The performers are linked to each other via a knit stretch sensor that connects the hoods of the two garments. As the performers bow and tilt their heads tugging on the sensor, the parameters for the filters are changed thereby effecting the sound.

video here

Cute Circuit Galaxy LED Dress

Cute Circuit has its Galaxy Dress on display aat the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. This dazzling dress features 24,000 LEDs and is a truly stunning piece of tech clothing. The dress is made with 2mm by 2mm LEDs woven into a silk chiffon and organza crinoline fabrics. This makes the dress more flowing and wearable. Power comes from several

iPod batteries that are hidden into the garment itself. This is perhaps the most tasteful LED garment to date.

See it here

The little black dress with a built in mobile phone

The little black dress is an essential part of any girl’s wardrobe. And if this design from CuteCircuit is any indication it could soon also be essential for staying in touch too. The M-dress is a little black number that has a mobile phone built into it. The wearer answers the dress by lifting their arm to their head as if they were holding one of those passé mobile phone handsets and disconnects once they lower their hand.

Full article here

Sewing Machine as Musical Instrument

Conductive textiles have been used to create a number of novel interactive

musical instruments but Lara Grant's use of the sewing machine as a musical instrument is by far one of my favorites.

Lara modified a sewing machine so that the needle and conductive piece of fabric that is being sewn functions as a switch. Every time the needle makes a stitch it also plays a note.

Additionally, the machine can record and play back musical loops.

see video here

Charming Burqa

CHARMING BURKA

Markus Kison (http://www.markuskison.de/)

The Charming Burka deals with Freud's idea that all clothes can be positioned between appeal and shame. The Burka was chosen because it is often positioned on the side of shame. Then a digital layer was added to it so that women can decide for themselves where they want to position themselves virtually. The Burka sends an image, chosen by the wearer, via bluetooth. Every person next to her can receive her picture via mobile phone and see the woman's self-determined identity. The laws of the Koran are not broken, so the Charming Burka allows the possibility of living a more western life, which some Muslim women desire today. The Charming Burka is realised with the bluetooth marketing solution Bluebot developed by Haase & Martin, the mobile marketing company in Dresden/Germany.

*Read about the French burqa ban

Fabrican: Spray-on Clothing

"A Spanish fashion designer has developed the world's first spray-on clothing that can be worn, washed and worn again.

Manel Torres joined forces with scientists at Imperial College London to invent the spray, which forms a seamless fabric on contact with the body."

read the article and watch a video here
check out the Fabrican website

Eco-Fashion: Going Green

The Museum at FIT presents Eco-Fashion: Going Green, an exhibition exploring fashion’s relationship with the environment.

Featuring more than 100 garments, accessories, and textiles from the mid-18th century to the present, Eco-Fashion: Going Green will examine both positive and negative environmental practices over the past two centuries, providing historical context for today’s eco-fashion movement.

On View at The Museum at FIT in New York
May 26 Through November 13, 2010

Stiff, Sticky, or Itchy

«Captain Electric» is a collection of three electronic garments that both passively harness energy from the body and actively allow for power generation by the user. Reflecting fashion’s historic relationship between discomfort and style, the dresses restrict and reshape the body in order to produce sufficient energy to fuel themselves and actuate light and sound events on the body.

















(photos from left to right: Stiff, Sticky, and Itchy)

SMARTSHIRT SYSTEM

"The SmartShirt System is a unisex wearable wireless T-shirt designed to collect physiological signals and movement from the human body. The System collects analog signals through conductive fiber sensors and passes them through a conductive fiber grid knitted in the T-Shirt. A textile connector passes the analog signals to a small personal controller held in a pocket on the shirt. The personal controller digitizes the signal and transmits the signal to a Bluetooth or Zigbee receiver connected to a base station where the information is collected, displayed and/or stored."

--sensatex

Dresses made from Human Hair: Would you wear them?

http://www.jennidutton.com/blondhairdress.html


http://www.styleguru.org/entry/a-sparkling-dress-made-from-blonde-hair/

If only all dresses were made of money...

Prefer credit to cash? No problem.





















Read the article.

Project Runway at the Hardware Store

Early in Season 7, Project Runway designers skipped the fabric store and went hardware shopping for the challenge. The winning design is to the left and my personal favorites are below.


Episode recap

Pictures

Recycling Artist Creates Portraits From Old Cassettes

Read about it and see more portraits here.

Also: Egg carton office lamps, a hotel made with 12 tons of litter, and a working hoverboard! Check them out at www.agreenliving.org.

2010 Spring Greening Contest

Inhabitat recently held a recycled art design competition. The winners are below. Can you figure out what materials they were made from? See the answers here. And check out the other finalist designs.

Stuck at Prom

Each year, Duck Brand Duct Tape holds a scholarship contest. The rules? Make an outfit ENTIRELY out of duct tape for you and your date and wear it to prom! Starting the 18th, you can vote for this year's winners. Check out pictures from past years (2009 winners left) and vote here.




For other duct tape crafts (flowers, wallets, flip flops, etc), check out www.monkeysee.com (search for "duct tape").

Toilet Paper?!

Yes, this wedding dress is made completely out of toilet paper!
Check out the article and more pictures here.

Solar dress charges your MP3 player

Made for the Cornell Design League Fashion Show this year, Abbey Liebman's solar powered dress "uses ultrathin flexible solar cells to power small electronics like phones and iPods."

"Parts of the dress come from Cornell University's Textiles Nanotech Laboratory, which teamed up with two Italian universities to create cotton threads that can conduct electrical currents, yet remain light and comfortable enough to feel like the good old cotton we all know and love to sleep in."



Read the article.

Read more from the Cornell Chronicle.

BLD: Bin Liner Dress

Why would a Vogue TV Host wear a trash bag to Fashion Week? Find out here (and learn how to make your own).

Louis Roe at Fashion Week, wearing a trash bag dress designed by Ceri Bartlett.

Wi-Fi Detector Shirt

"Now you can display the current wi-fi signal strength to yourself and everyone around you with this stylish Wi-Fi Detector Shirt. The glowing bars on the front of the shirt dynamically change to display the current Wi-Fi signal strength."
Buy one for yourself here.

Donate your hair, clean up an oil spill

You may have never considered donating your hair because the minimum length requirements tend to run high. (Locks of Love - 10 inches; Pantene Beautiful Lengths - 8 inches) If that’s the case, check out Matter of Trust. They will accept hair of any length. They weave it into mats or brooms and use them to clean up oil spills. They also accept animal fur and nylons. Read the full article here.

Why does it work?

Donate your hair.

Learn more about the Gulf oil spill.