Wearing Tech: Where Fashion Meets Technology

Everything Old Is New Again

Although it may seem so, wearable technologies are not new. In the 1880s, the first hearing aids were developed. A wearable computer was tested in 1961 at a Las Vegas casino, by Edward O. Thorp and Claude E. Shannon, who created a pocket-sized analog computer used for predicting roulette wheels." CuteCircuit made headlines in 2006 with its "Hug Shirt", in which sensors, set off by the heat of skin, touch and your heartbeat, "give a hug" to another person. And don't forget the pocket watch, which debuted in the 1500s, though wristwatches hit the mainstream when British soldiers wore them at the front in World War I.

"Expression is arguably the most important function of clothing today -- and arguably one of the key reasons we wear clothes at all, historically speaking -- and it seems natural that technology will eventually influence the ways in which we express ourselves and communicate through clothing," Dunne says.

It's hard to isolate the exact tipping point that's caused this recent uptick in interest in the field, but wearable technology, or "wearables," as insiders refer to the field, have caught the attention of many designers from the textile and engineering industries. Designer Moritz Waldemeyer suggests that designer Hussein Chalayan's collections shown in Paris during the past two years has something to do with it. Chalayan, one of the few internationally renowned fashion designers to incorporate technology into his creations-dresses that mechanically morph (one with a motorized rising and falling hemline), and and more recently, a few garments that emit light using lasers-has shown the fashion industry the different aesthetic technology can bring to designs.

When textile designer Kerri Wallace discusses what she sees as a growing trend in the use of technologies in the fashion world, she uses words that evoke change and embedded intelligence. Wallace says that the tipping point occurred with, "the excitement of items and products being intelligent and moving this intelligence away from conventional predominately 'hard' products, with the possibility and potential to become 'soft,' 'flexible' and 'invisible.'"

Fashion in the Eye of the Designer

This is technology as art, which means that different players have varied interpretations of the form. Maggie Orth, founder and CEO of International Fashion Machines, takes the big view. She points out that wearables combine elements of soft and hard materials, traditional and modern technologies, and old and new aesthetics. And she argues that a wearable is "an extension of self," so therefore a car could included be in the category because it's exo-skeleton like.

Others describe wearables as the artistic meeting of form and function.

"There are the hearing aids, pace-makers, tiny radios and music players, Bluetooth earphones, eyewear with built-in screens, wrist PDAs; the list is seemingly endless," CEO of Aniomagic Corp., Nwanua Elumeze says. "I would categorize 'wearables' as a class of computational artifacts that are intended to be worn, distinguishable from things one needs to remember to take."