In my recent book “Fashionable Technology, The Intersection of Design, Fashion, Science, and Technology” I describe fashionable wearables as “designed” garments, accessories, or jewelry that combine aesthetics and style with functional technology. The potential for collaboration between the worlds of fashion and technology has been omnipresent since the initial explorations of Hussein Chalayan ten years ago and expanded into scientific experiments with the spray-on-fabric Fabrican by trained fashion designer Manel Torres. Our clothing, accessories, and jewelry are the epidermal interfaces with which we can experience the world.
The expressive value of fashionable wearables can be greatly heightened by the integration of technology. By incorporating electronics into a garment we can transform traditional fashion elements such as color, texture, and cut to include movement, touch, light, sound, and interactivity as new aesthetic interaction interfaces. It is important to recognize the value of the word fashion, pointing out that aesthetics and style have been an obvious tool for the communication of values, culture, status and mood individually over time. Fashionable wearables are associated with adornment and style. Humans are fashionable beings who are attentive to style and the powerful potential of wearable technologies.
Code as Interface
1 of 1 is a design studio founded by Cait Reas that synthesizes fashion and art. It demonstrates the fusion of fashion and code in the project “Tissue Collection”. The individually signed and numbered garments are a result of the collaboration between the artist C.E.B. Reas and fashion designer Cait Reas. The artist created generative images by defining processes and then translating them into images through code using the software “Processing”. These patterns were then applied to the fabric by the fashion designer using digital textile printing. Thus the dynamically generated moving images are converted into static image as soon as they are printed permanently on the fabric not allowing any duplication.
In the next iteration I would suggest that garments become animated canvases through the dynamic display of such generated images. The future calls for the dynamic generation of visuals on the surfaces of our garments to enable real-time interaction and to allow the wearer to create their own aesthetic interfaces.
Aesthetic Interaction Interfaces
Fashionable wearables are aesthetic interaction interfaces that are more than mere fashion. They incorporate technological elements that transform them into interactive interfaces. Today, fashionable wearables are mediators of information and amplifiers of fantasy, ranging from consumer fashion to the stage garment of a performer.
Sabine Seymour has been described as an innovator, visionary, and trend spotter. She is the Chief Creative Officer of her company Moondial, which develops fashionable wearables and consults on fashionable technology to companies worldwide. Moondial’s work is based on the convergence of fashion, design and technology.
- fashionabletechnology.org – Fashionable Technology: The Intersection of Design, Fashion, Science, and Technology by Sabine Seymour
- moondial.com – Moondial – Fashionable Technology
