TECHNO FASHION
Climate Dress by Diffus
There are several threats posed by contemporary urban life that Techno Fashion specifically works to counteract. One of these threats is the environmental crisis, which is being treated by the Danish design company Diffus. In 2008 Diffus created the Climate Dress, a design that was devised to generate awareness of environmental issues through an “aesthetic representation of environmental data.”
Powered by an Arduino Lilypad microcontroller and a CO2 sensor, the dress uses conductive embroidery to transmit information to the hand-stitched lights, resulting in patterns that range from slow pulses to rapid flashes depending on the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. (Insert Diffus Picture here) According to the Danish label’s owners Michel Guglielmi and Hanne Louise Johannesen, the “different light patterns are staged as dramatic ‘micro events’ embedded into clothes. They diligently and without concession tell us disturbing stories wrapped into a comfortable and reassuring cocoon de luxe.” Through similar designs, Diffus intends to “support the interaction between human and computer technology in a non-screen-based environment - an environment with physical and sensual qualities appealing to our human intuition and adapted to our daily life.”
Climate Dress was presented at the 2009 Bright Green Expo in Copenhagen, which was held two months before the Copenhagen Climate Summit COP15. The dress was created by fashion designer Tine M. Jensen in collaboration with the Swiss embroidery company Forster-Rohner, the Danish research institute Alexandra, and the Danish School of Design. At the time of its presentation, the dress’ CO2 sensor was hidden in the model’s hair, but Diffus envisions placing sensors all over the built environment and equipping the dress with wireless technology so it can receive and send information from the scattered CO2 sensors.
D.N.A. Dress by KnoWear
KnoWear is a Brooklyn-based design studio owned by artist-cum-designer duo Peter Allen and Carla Ross Allen. The designers explore new possibilities within design, critiquing contemporary culture through examinations of the use of the body as a surface for treating political, social and mass marketing issues. One of their main focuses lie around nomadic technology and how it redefines notions of space, body and identity. Overall, the KnoWear label believes that as technology gets smaller and more flexible it will migrate on to the body. KnoWear is interested in examining how garments of the future will take on new functions as the protection aspect of clothing will, qua technology, be far superior than the garments of today. Physical exposure to technology, and its protrusions will dictate the aesthetic of clothing designs.
See KnoWear's portfolio here.
KnoWear’s most recent project portfolio from 2011 includes the D.N.A. dress. D.N.A. stands for Digital Nomadic Apparel. D.N.A. is a garment with integrated nomadic technology such as a digital wireless communication device and digital wallet. The garment allows the user to shop and communicate without carrying such additional devices as a smart phone or wallet. The prototype dress is accompanied by an ivory scarf, which is programmed to recognize the owner’s DNA, introducing a new tool to combat identity theft. The D.N.A. dress design retains the classical familiarity of the little black dress subtly camouflaging the garment’s hi-tech functionality. The dress’ flexibility hints to the reconfigurable fashion of the 60s often credited to fashion designer Paco Rabanne, as it is equipped with multiple laces that allow for a plethora of fashionable ways to pin the scarf to the dress.
Company Keeper Dress
The Company Keeper dress was created by the designers Sara Diamond and Di Mainstone in collaboration with the design team Am I Able, XS Labs and the Banff Media Institute.
See Di Mainstone's official webpage here.
Company Keeper was designed in a classical, stylish cut to intentionally downplay its functionality. The dress is embedded with touch sensors and an accelerometer embedded in a hanging beaded tassel. It uses these technologies to assess the mood of the wearer through her body language and the level of sound in the environment. The tassel registers the degree of aggression with which it is handled by the wearer, and sends the information to a centralised computer, which then acts accordingly. When moods such as wrath, awkwardness, and claustrophobia are detected, an antidotal soundscape is played through headphones in the hood, either in the form of soothing music or comforting spoken messages. Company Keeper is thus more than just a dress, it is a companion on the wearer’s way through the plethora of non places of modern urban infrastructure.
The designer Di Mainstone explained that the idea behind this design was to create an interactive garment that can protect the wearer from urban life’s unpleasantries such as phonic pollution on public transport systems, in the copy room or while walking by noisy road-repair. But a dress like Company Keeper could also serve people that suffer from different anxiety disorders like agoraphobia or claustrophobia. It is a high-tech piece of clothing that can assist the wearer in stressful situations.
Watch Di Mainstone present her incredible designs
Embrace-Me by Studio 5050, NY
Official description: "A fitted dark-blue canvas hoodie sports the collection’s abstracted logo in a pattern made of a futuristic silver conductive fabric. When two people wearing the hoodies embrace they actually power each other up through that pattern. The symbolic energy transfer becomes fully actualized and the embrace is instantly translated into an explosion of light and sound.
Small white lights flicker in the back of each hoodie forming a big-dipper pattern while a faint heart beat sound is emitted. The hoodies themselves take their design inspiration from the construction of early Siberian hooded coats, creating an enveloping safe haven, a tranquil vestige of protection and romanticism. The hoodies also come in a luxurious, cashmere-like 100% bamboo basket weave -- very huggable indeed."
Masai Dress
Studio 5050, NY
Official description: "Inspired by Masai wedding collars, this dress salutes both our global provenance and our desire to create our own soundtrack as we move in mysterious ways. With every step, strings of hand-formed silver beads that hung from the collar brush against conductive threads sewn into the dress, generating a series of sounds. A leisurely walk or a night at a cocktail party turns into an improvisational performance.
A long asymmetrical swoop in the back of the dress recalls Balenciaga’s famed wedding dress – an homage to a maestro that visually and aurally blends cultures, traditions and emotions. The dress comes in a luscious deep-sky blue silk jersey and white nourishing Sea-Tiva (75% cotton, 25% algae).
A dress that heals body and soul."
Temperature Sweater
Studio 5050, NY
Official description: "A snug, fleece sweater sports a radiant yet discreet temperature-display on each sleeve (one in Fº and one in Cº). The sweater’s cut embraces the body from all sides, a cozy version of the armor and a sexy version of fleece. Made of two interlocking panels, the sweater mimics early construction techniques where loom widths dictate the rules of construction and design. Old and new, our human path, and a bit of humor, make the temperature sweater a warm must-have addition to the wardrobe."
