TECHNO FASHION
Starlab: Pioneering Intelligent Clothing
Starlab, Pioneering Intelligent Clothing
First things first: Tech Labs are a key player in the development of Techno Fashion. However, they are usually overlooked and don't get the credit they deserve, which led me to writing this short article about one of the first blue skies research labs that dared to envision a different future for clothing designs.
In it's early stages, and long before the concept of Techno Fashion was coined by Bradley Quinn, so called "blue skies research" laboratories were working hard on pushing the boundaries for what was possible at the intersection of technology and physical matter (that also includes textiles & clothing - duh!). Blue skies research (aka blue sky science) is curiosity-driven research, that doesn't strictly aim at resolving a certain problem or achieving a specific goal, but is rather carried out with the impetus of wanting to see how far science can go. This usually leads to unanticipated scientific breakthroughs and has contributed to advancements within such fields as genetics and stem cell research.
One such laboratory - that would be of special interest for Techno Fashion fanatics - was Starlab, a privately funded interdisciplinary research laboratory based in Brussels, Belgium. When I say "was" it is because the lab unfortunately lost its fundings and went bankrupt back in 2001. Starlab invested their time and energy in (amongst others) trying
to develop portals for time travel and enabling teleportation. However, before they were shut down, they managed to create some pretty incredible garments and I'm amazed the technology they developed wasn't picked up and developed further by someone else. Starlab collaborated with prominent fashion designers like André Courrèges and with major corporations like Adidas and Philips. One of Starlab's most successful research areas was the development of intelligent clothing, and the lab focused on creating garments that could function as the wearer's "second skin", and that could connect the body of the wearer and his/her activities to the environment by way of electronics.
i-Wear was a collection created by Starlab in collaboration with the Belgian fashion designer Walter van Beirendonck. One of the prototypes was introduced on the catwalk as a part of Beirendonck's 2000/2001 A/W collection. The prototype was a series of six shirts that each had a specific technological function, and were therefore to be worn on top of each other so that they could communicate with both each other and their immediate environment by way of FAN technology (Fabric Area Network), which is a wireless network that enables the transmission of electronic data. The different tiers were thought as replacements for everyday objects, such as batteries, mobile phones, laptops and sound systems. i-'Wear was engineered to perform their functions instead.
"The idea of this layering is that each function can work separately, and we can choose different modules. So, at a later stage, we had planned to combine different functions in one and the same shirt. (...) Another reason we were working in layers is that it reflects reality - people wear several layers: underwear, shirt, trousers, shoes, jacket, backpack. Integrating different functions into these layers and making them communicate, would have been the key to making the whole thing work."(Quinn, 2006:104)
The shirts each fulfill a specific function: one can store digital data, another is furnished with motion sensors, another records and plays sounds, etc. This particular i-Wear design can thus monitor the wearer's vital signs and register his/her surroundings, so that the garment can adapt to it and protect the wearer in e.g. extreme weather by maintaining a balance between the body and its environment. The shirts could be programmed to keep the body's temperature at a constant 38 degrees Celsius and either cool down or heat up according to the weather conditions and the air's temperature. The shirts could be controlled through a small electronic device called "Spyglass", which was much like a personal computer and worked as a multifunctional information- and communication centre. Spyglass could also access the Internet and could be used as a remote control for the operation of 'foreign' systems so that the information stored in the shirts could be transmitted and read on other electronic gadgets such as mobile phones and personal computers.
Philips bought the intellectual property rights to the intelligent clothing project i-Wear and there isn't much information to be found online about the project anymore, which is why I can't give you any links. However, I warmly recommend you get your hands on Bradley Quinn's book "Techno Fashion" which gives more details about it and many others.
Philips have since the year 2000 invested in intelligent clothing for the future and have even published a book on the matter: "New Nomads: An Exploration of Wearable Electronics by Philips" in collaboration with the designer Stefano Marzano. In 2006 they initiated a far-future research project called Design Probes, which is an attempt to visualize human kind's lifestyle and clothing beyond the year 2020. They collaborate with several prominent and daring designers, and have created some thought-provoking dresses that can be seen on their website.
Sources:
Quinn, Bradley: Techno Fashion, (Oxford/New York: Berg Publishing, 2006)
Starlab website: http://www.space-time.info/starlab/StarlabArchive.html
Starlab on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlab
Blue skies research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_skies_research
Philips - Design Probes: http://www.design.philips.com/probes/index.page.