Fashion and Technology: Wearable Tech and Smart Clothing

Introduction: Fashion Meets the Future

What kind of technology-driven fashion will your grandchildren's grandchildren be walking around wearing? Will future generations have spray-on dresses featuring unlimited color-coordinating options by 2030? Will cellphone bracelets be standard accessories, and will fashionable eyewear double as live video monitors with access to every sports and news broadcast on the planet — featuring instant audio translation for up to 66 languages? These projected advances may seem more science fiction than reality, but seemingly outlandish concepts today may soon be as real and normal as the sunrise. This paper reviews and critiques the most recent forward-looking fashion innovations — including several wearable technologies and "smart clothing" concepts. It also offers analysis of the technological feasibility and economic practicality of projects currently on the drawing boards — and in the creative minds — of fashion engineers and designers.

History of Fashion and Clothing Innovation

The textile industry throughout history has attempted to develop a close relationship with science, albeit that relationship has often been discreet. While humans had been sewing for as long as 20,000 years ago — archaeologists have found bone needles, apparently used to sew together skins and furs, dating back that far — the very first prototype sewing machine was not invented until Thomas Saint did so in 1790. Saint's invention helped launch the textile and fashion industry into an era of tremendous growth and production. This technological advancement ignited the imaginations of designers and fashion entrepreneurs and generated a multitude of new ideas. The industry began to see the possibility of not only seamless mass production, but of great progress in the clothing marketed on a global scale.

In 1934, Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli entered into a collaborative arrangement with French textile manufacturer Colcombet to design and produce a "glass cape" using Rhodophane material. Two years later, Schiaparelli presented her innovative collection, which used prints featuring thermometers as a way of reflecting the public's enthusiastic emotions surrounding the arrival of the radio and the telegraph. Schiaparelli also teamed with avant-garde artist Salvador Dalí to shock the fashion world with surrealistic designs that included a "Lobster Dress" made of silk organza and horsehair (Philadelphia Museum of Art). Dalí was said to be irritated when Schiaparelli would not allow him to "spread real mayonnaise on the finished gown."

When nylon was invented in 1938, it was first used for bristles in toothbrushes, but it was soon applied to the production of fabrics — including its widely accepted use in women's hosiery — and was lauded for its toughness and resistance to tears and shrinkage. In the 1960s and 1970s, fashion designers like Paco Rabanne, André Courrèges, Pierre Cardin, and Rudi Gernreich utilized nylon and polyester fabrics to great financial and cultural advantage. There was an element of glamour in their work that transcended typical clothing design.

Tomorrow: The Future Blending of Fashion and Technology

Among the most popular consumer concepts in the early 21st century are "green," "sustainability," and "eco-friendly." Scientists tell us the glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, hurricanes and other storms are becoming more violent, and myriad animal species are endangered due to rising global temperatures. But what about the human species? Will technology become personalized enough so that the clothing we wear helps us interact with colleagues and achieve a sustainable relationship with the natural world? The challenge for designers is enormous as new generations become more and more dependent on technology. The marketplace for consumer purchases is no longer local or regional — it is global. Will the fashion industry take a page from the digital technology revolution and produce ideas that are practical and cost-friendly?

Will there be an iPod-like innovation in the offing for major fashion houses? Will a leading designer produce a practical coat that adjusts its outer fabric when a built-in humidity indicator detects incoming precipitation? Will fashion industry innovators begin producing garments that are realistic for low-income families during continuing economic downturns? And will the top fashion moguls begin to understand that the old catwalk strategy — featuring extraordinarily thin, conventionally beautiful models — is increasingly irrelevant to the vast majority of consumers? Nearly all of the world's population neither needs nor embraces the high-concept clothing that celebrity icons wear on the red carpet.

Certainly there are no simple answers to those questions. It has been proven repeatedly that fashion and technology can combine innovative energies to produce good things for consumers. Yet those energies have sometimes been put on the back burner or ignored. Fashion may in time be turned on its head, and corporate profits might take a back seat to putting clothing on store shelves that the average consumer can actually wear and use — clothing that offers genuinely practical innovative components. This society needs to pull back on its obsessive consumption, and fashion industry innovators can become part of the solution rather than continuing to be part of the problem.

New Ideas in Fashion Technology

When we talk about fashion technology, we are not merely alluding to quirky inventions that make the fashion pages today and disappear tomorrow. Consider the "mp3blue," an all-in-one jacket featured on the website Double Agent. As the name suggests, this jacket contains a built-in mp3 player along with a hands-free Bluetooth mobile phone. The site explains that the jacket protects the consumer from "having to worry about that stuff falling out of your pockets." The German clothing company Rosner teamed with Infineon Technologies to design this jacket for the digitally inclined consumer, though the average person may not feel the need for an mp3 player integrated into outerwear.

The jacket features a textile keyboard on the left sleeve, which works seamlessly thanks to electrically conductive fabric sewn into the lining. The mp3 player has 128 MB of memory and a rechargeable battery that lasts up to eight hours. The collar provides both headphones and a microphone, so when the wearer receives a phone call, the music automatically shuts off. The jacket also comes with a removable hood that can be pulled up for privacy during calls. The retail price for this piece of fashion technology: $725.

Then there is the "Show Off T-Shirt," featuring a built-in sound-sensitive graphic equalizer panel. Made from 100% cotton, the front of the shirt lights up to the beat of music, brought to life by the equalizer. A battery pack is tucked discreetly into a pocket inside the shirt. It is marketed as "great for concerts or parties," though whether it qualifies as "smart" clothing is debatable.

On a more serious note, a thoughtful piece published in the International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology explains that recent years have produced "an increased interest in wearable technologies, smart fabrics and interactive garments" (Stylios, 2005). Professor George K. Stylios, principal investigator for the Research Institute for Flexible Materials (RIFleX) at a university in Selkirkshire, UK, explains that technological developments in smart fabrics and interactive garments are driven in part by "sensor-based fabrics, micro devices, wire and wireless networks."

Stylios also criticizes global fashion markets whose recent developments have resulted in "glorifying garments as gimmicky gadgets." At the same time, he points to efforts within the fashion industry to use technology to improve quality of life — "even for life saving purposes" — especially in the military, healthcare, and firefighting sectors. Developing prototype interactive garments capable of monitoring "various functions of the wearer" will require the use of "interdisciplinary technologies in fabrics, sensors and wireless computing."

Stylios has been involved in a project with several objectives, all planned as helpful monitoring products for healthcare and clinical purposes. Among the "smart clothing" goals pursued by his team are: (a) developing "suitable wireless sensors" implanted in fabrics to measure ECG, temperature, breathing, skin conductivity, mobility and movement, humidity, and positioning; (b) innovating a "Personal Area Network and a Wireless Communication Centre"; (c) optimizing wireless technologies such as Bluetooth to enable communication between sensors on clothing and a "central processing unit"; (d) conceptualizing a "smart multilayer fabric"; and (e) fully integrating technologies for use in smart clothing.

Conclusion: The Road Ahead for Smart Clothing

The growth of smart clothing will occur in two distinct areas, Tang asserts. One will be "performance-driven smart clothing," including "continuous monitoring smart garments for patient rehabilitation or military" applications (p. 124). The second area involves "fashion-driven smart clothing" that emphasizes aesthetic appeal — how good the garments look and how popular they can become. However, before smart garments become as commonplace as dress shirts and T-shirts, the industry must address aesthetic properties such as the "handle, drape and comfort" of the fabric and the garment itself. Durability, weight, and the ability to safely launder the garments must also be taken into consideration (Tang, p. 125).

Beyond those considerations, the cost of smart fabrics and smart clothing must be kept within reason for the average consumer. The smart technologies projected to be most important — such as solar cells and flexible sensor-equipped materials — must be developed collaboratively between fashion industry professionals and scientists. If the next generation of smart clothing can be cooperatively produced with both practicality and affordability in mind, the industry has nowhere to go but up.

Works Cited

BimBam Banana. (2009). The Show Off T-Shirt — So Cool in the Dark! Accessed February 10, 2010, from http://www.bimbambanana.com.

Clark, Emily. (2007). New Sensor Technology to Boost Smart Clothing Market. Gizmag. Accessed February 10, 2010, from

Double Agent. (2007). Hi-Tech Clothing. Accessed February 10, 2010, from

Museum of American Heritage. (2008). Sewing Machines: History of the Sewing Machine. Accessed February 10, 2010, from

Philadelphia Museum of Art. (2008). Collections Object: Dress. http://www.philamuseum.org.

Stylios, George K. (2005). Research Register: Selkirkshire, UK. International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology, Vol. 17, Issue 6, 57–59.

Tang, S. Lam Po, & Stylios, G. K. (2005). An Overview of Smart Technologies for Clothing Design and Engineering. International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology, Vol. 18, No. 2, 108–128.