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This would save lives, in the early stages.

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Creating textiles that harvest energy lighten the warfighter’s load.

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Creating textiles that harvest energy lighten the warfighter’s load.

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U.S. Army studies show that a fully equipped soldier carries between 50 and 120 pounds of equipment, depending on the mission. Efforts to reduce the amount of weight soldiers need to carry in the field are in full swing—and scientists and researchers are turning to advanced textiles as part of the answer.

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I have been following this person for quite a while now, it's quite interesting. The whole glow-in-the-dark bit. Can be interesting to use it for embroidery or just use them for weaving.

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500 million+ members | Manage your professional identity. Build and engage with your professional network. Access knowledge, insights and opportunities.

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Artificial Intelligence, The “Brain Power” Behind Next Generation Smart Textiles

https://fashnerd.com/2018/01/ai-artificial-intelligence-smart-textiles/

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I decided to give a keynote on the merger of Artificial Intelligence with textiles because I believe that A.I. is capable of creating the next wonder material. With the rise of smart textiles creating a fourth industrial revolution for the textiles and fashion industry, I think that once fabric gains intelligence nobody would want to go to dumb again. Representing a significant opportunity for new and established textile companies to evolve, A.I. as the brains behind smart textiles could mean that wearing tech on the wrist could become obsolete.

The good news is that A.I is already revolutionising many industries. It is changing the way we travel, do business, shop and socialise. With new endeavours emerging all the time, education and understanding of A.I. is becoming crucial. It is only when companies understand how groundbreaking A.I is, that they will be able to benefit from performance-enhanced apparel.

That being said, the merger of textiles and A.I is still in its infancy. Opening up to the world of A.I, companies and makers are still experimenting with various avenues and one of these companies in QOOWEAR. They have produced AI-controlled Thermal Wear, which can automatically change its temperature during any activity, regardless of what the external weather conditions are. Based on selected heating points, QOOWEAR uses Artificial Intelligence to recognise, in real-time, the coldest points of the body, giving them the priority to be actively-heated, including critical anatomical areas such as fingers of hands and feet. It also integrates sensor systems used for real-time biodata analysis and health's risk prevention.

QOOWEAR is not alone in the A.I. textile revolution there are other brands taking advantage of artificial intelligence meets fabric like JanSport. They have developed 300 backpacks with programmable fabric, which allows users to share a song, music video, a Facebook page or Internet link with anyone nearby. Appealing to the digital natives, the concept was born from MIT professor Yoel Fink, to reinvent fabrics as programmable devices. Then there is Skiin, a brand that uses artificial intelligence to interpret the wearer's bio-data, andSensoria, which has introduced an Artificial Intelligence enabled real-time coaching, and sensor-infused smart garments and a new A.I. enabled coaching App. Let's not forget about SUPA who have come up with an A.I powered sports bra which allows wearers to track heartbeat, steps, etc.

The simple answer is yes and looking at the new possibilities that programmable materials offer is a great start. Programmable materials are a new class of revolutionary materials that can be manufactured once and then programmed to alter their properties and shape on the shape of demand top suit. Already on it is designer Danit Peleg and the brains at MIT. Pelleg has been concentrating on modelling fabrics into three-dimensional structures, and MIT has been taking existing material systems like fibres, sheets, strands and three-dimensional objects and programming them to change shape and property on demand.

Although Pelleg and MIT are exploring the possibilities using A.I, the naysayers are keeping progress at bay. To curb the increasing issues like waste and pollution, it is imperative that the fashion industry invests in A.I. because doing enable companies to obtain or sustain a competitive advantage and AI could allow them to move into new businesses and ventures. So now imagine a future, were A.I has played a role in creating an eco-friendly programmable fabric that can hear, see, sense and act, now would that be something.
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Artificial Intelligence, The "Brain Power" Behind Next Generation Smart Textiles

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I decided to give a keynote on the merger of Artificial Intelligence with textiles because I believe that A.I. is capable of creating the next wonder material. With the rise of smart textiles creating a fourth industrial revolution for the textiles and fashion industry, I think that once fabric gains intelligence nobody would want to go to dumb again.

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Smart Textiles: The Future of the Fabric Industry

https://www.apexmills.com/media_post/smart-textiles/

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Alternative material for clothing or accessories

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Taking Romanian Fashion To New Heights (Alexandra Sipa CSM Graduate Collection)

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Talal Al Murad on LinkedIn: #sustainable #clothing #fashion | 592 comments

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London-based designer Ryan Yasin won the James Dyson award by using his background in aeronautical engineering to develop a line of sustainable apparel... 592 comments on LinkedIn

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TEXTILE MOUNTAIN - THE HIDDEN BURDEN OF OUR FASHION WASTE

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Iris van Herpen presented her latest collection 'Roots of Rebirth' on January 25th, during the ongoing Paris Haute Couture Week. In this trying year, the designer explores a symbiosis of high technology and the artisanal craftsmanship of couture, referencing the intricacy of fungi, weaving a dialogue between the terrestrial and the underworld.

Van Herpen explores the relationship between the human body and the natural world. " Thinking about fungi makes the world look different. These astonishing organisms challenge our animal imaginations and make questions of many of our well-worn concepts, from individuality to intelligence." - the designer references to the book penned by scientist Merlin Sheldrake, 'Entangled Life'

The collection is a performance dedicated to the importance of our being and the valiance of nature. With the persistence of time, evolution prevails, and while these beings are never truly fixed, they exist merely in a state of flux, a rippling fabric of life itself, dancing to the benevolent beat of rebirth. - read the collection notes written by Scarlett Baker

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#PFW: White Mountaineering Fall Winter 2021.22 Collection

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Iris van Herpen Haute Couture Spring Summer 2021 Collection

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Iris van Herpen presented her latest collection 'Roots of Rebirth' on January 25th, during the ongoing Paris Haute Couture Week. In this trying year, the designer explores a symbiosis of high technology and the artisanal craftsmanship of couture, referencing the intricacy of fungi, weaving a dialogue between the terrestrial and the underworld.

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Anrealage S/S22 Women's - Paris - StyleZeitgeist

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We would like to present to you Anrealage's Spring/Summer 2022 Women's Paris collection.

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We would like to present to you Iris van Herpen's Fall/Winter 2016 Women's collection.

Photography by Julien Boudet and may not be reproduced without expressed permission.

Author: Patrick LaDuke

Patrick LaDuke is the Assistant Editor of StyleZeitgeist Magazine. He works in NYC with various clients acting as an art director and graphic artist.

Latest Posts from Category

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Iris van Herpen F/W16 - Paris - StyleZeitgeist

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We would like to present to you Iris van Herpen's Fall/Winter 2016 Women's collection. Photography by Julien Boudet and may not be reproduced without expressed permission. Author: Patrick LaDuke Patrick LaDuke is the Assistant Editor of StyleZeitgeist Magazine. He works in NYC with various clients acting as an art director and graphic artist.

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Here it is perfectly illustrated what you can expect as far as running concerned. Your shoes are your friend and your buddy here! They measure basically everything varying from stride, balance, distance, cadence, stability…..you name it! While running your headphone gives you info on how you can improve your running technique. This one still has a separate sensor but no doubt, it is a matter of time and the whole thing will be integrated in the shoe.

Under Armour is another company aiming at this market. It built a chip into the sole of its new Hovr running shoe, which provides direct feedback on cadence via the “Map my Run” app. Put your running shoes on and running will be a different experience from now on!

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ARION Smart Insole: Transform your running technique | Promo

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Revealing Dita Von Teese in a Fully Articulated 3D Printed Gown

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Revealing Dita Von Teese in a Fully Articulated 3D Printed Gown

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Last night at the Ace Hotel in New York to a crowd of uber-cool fashonistas and paparazzi we revealed the 3D printed gown designed by Michael Schmidt and Francis Bitonti modeled by queen of burlesque Dita Von Teese.

The fully articulated gown based on the Fibonacci sequence was designed by Michael Schmidt and 3D modeled by architect Francis Bitonti to be 3D printed in Nylon by Shapeways. The gown was assembled from 17 pieces, dyed black, lacquered and adorned with over 13,000 Swarovski crystals to create a sensual flowing form.

Thousands of unique components were 3D printed in a flowing mesh designed exactly to fit Dita's body. This represents the possibility to 3D print complex, customized fabric like garments designed exactly to meet a specific person or need. As we see the material properties of 3D printing mature to produce more fine, flexible materials we will see more and more forays into fashion such as this. At first it is at the boundaries of haute couture and art but as we have seen with Nike using 3D printing in footwear, we will see more and more 3D printing creep into the world of clothing and fashion until it becomes ubiquitous.

We would like to extend a massive thanks to the entire team at the Ace Hotel in New York for organizing the collaboration and an amazing event. It is these collaborations between designers and 3D modeling specialists that push the boundaries of what is possible with 3D printing.

At Shapeways we receive a constant stream of inquiries from artists, designers and advertising agencies from around the world looking to connect with 3D modeling experts to help them bring their ideas to reality with 3D printing. If you are a 3D modeling expert interested in helping others realize their ideas with 3D printing, post your availability in the 3D modelers for hire thread in the Shapeways forums and you may be the next 3D modeling craftsperson blinking into the flashing lights of the paparazzi on stage.

Thanks again to the Ace Hotel, Michael Schmidt, Francis Bitonti, Dita Von Teese and the entire Shapeways team that made this possible.

Thanks to the Ace Hotel and Albert Sanchez for images.

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Revealing Dita Von Teese in a Fully Articulated 3D Printed Gown

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Last night at the Ace Hotel in New York to a crowd of uber-cool fashonistas and paparazzi we revealed the 3D printed gown designed by Michael Schmidt and Francis Bitonti modeled by queen of burlesque Dita Von Teese. The fully articulated gown based on... #fashion #inspiration #whatshot

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Xiaoqing' s example -  3D-printed stainless steel bridge

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Xiaoqing' s example -  3D-printed stainless steel bridge

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A 12-metre 3D-printed pedestrian bridge designed by Joris Laarman and built by Dutch robotics company MX3D has opened in Amsterdam six years after the project was launched.

The bridge, which was fabricated from stainless steel rods by six-axis robotic arms equipped with welding gear, spans the Oudezijds Achterburgwal in Amsterdam's Red Light District.

Named MX3D Bridge, it was designed by Dutch studio Joris Laarman Lab in collaboration with MX3D, a technology company co-founded by Laarman, and engineering firm Arup.

The structure used 4,500 kilograms of stainless steel, which was 3D-printed by robots in a factory over a period of six months before been craned into position over the canal this year.

Its curving S-shaped form and balustrades with lattice-style perforations were designed using parametric modelling software.

The team behind the bridge claimed the technique showed how 3D-printing technology can lead to more efficient structures that use less material.

"This robotic technology finally allows larger optimized designs to be 3D-printed in metal," said MX3D co-founder Gijs van der Velden.

"This causes significant weight reduction and reduced impact for parts manufactured in the tooling, oil and gas and construction industries."

The technique can lead to more sustainable structures, the team claimed. "The industry is facing a huge challenge in becoming carbon-neutral in 2050," said Arup structural engineer Stijn Joosten.

"By stepping up our game and the will to make a change as designers and engineers, we can bring the necessary innovation to make a difference in tomorrow's built environment."

Joris Laarman's canal bridge in Amsterdam could take 3D printing "to a higher level"

However, architect Philip Oldfield calculated that the stainless steel used in the structure has 27.7 tonnes of embodied carbon.

"Stainless steel has an embodied carbon of 6.15kgCO2/kg," tweeted Oldfield, who is head of the art, design and architecture school at the University of New South Wales in Australia. "This bridge then has an #embodiedcarbon of at least 27.7 tonnes of CO2 to span a few metres."

The Alan Turing Institute and Arup fitted the structure with a network of sensors that allows the bridge to collect data and build a digital twin to keep track of its performance and health.

The digital twin will monitor corrosion, load changes, environmental conditions and pedestrian use in efforts to further data-centric design.

Laarman had the idea for the bridge after combining robotic arms with welding machines to create a machine capable of printing furniture. "By adding small amounts of molten metal at a time, we are able to print lines in mid-air," explained Laarman at the time.

The welding machine later formed the basis of MX3D, which Laarman co-founded to explore the potential for printing larger-scale objects.

The bridge has undergone multiple iterations since the project was launched in 2015, with the opening originally slated for 2017.

The original plan was to print the structure across the canal in situ, with robots working from both banks welding the bridge beneath them until they met in the middle.

The final iteration saw the bridge built in two parts at an off-site facility. Its main span was completed in April 2018 with the deck printed in October that year.

The structure was strengthened to be more in line with council regulations and to protect the structure against any potential boat collisions.

First tenants move into 3D-printed home in Eindhoven

Although this is believed to be the first 3D-printed stainless steel bridge, bridges have previously been 3D printed from other materials. In 2017, construction company BAM Infra built what they claimed was the world's first 3D-printed concrete bridge.
Photography is by Thea van den Heuvel unless stated otherwise.

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Long-awaited 3D-printed stainless steel bridge opens in Amsterdam

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A 12-metre 3D-printed pedestrian bridge designed by Joris Laarman and built by Dutch robotics company MX3D has opened in Amsterdam six years after the project was launched. The bridge, which was fabricated from stainless steel rods by six-axis robotic arms equipped with welding gear, spans the Oudezijds Achterburgwal in Amsterdam's Red Light District.

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Look at the product below from Wearable X. They are called smart yoga pants. These have accelerometers and vibrating motors woven into the fabric around the hips, knees and ankles that gently vibrate and give you instruction on how to move and what the correct position is. It is your perfect yoga teacher at the time you wish and against a much lower price. What more do you want! Again a perfect example of what innovation can do. Smart out of the box thinking, which brings yoga to your home.

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Smart leggings by Wearable X vibrate to correct imperfect yoga poses

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New innovation and creativity after covid in the design industry

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New innovation and creativity after covid in the design industry

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Montreal based fashion designer and professor at University of Quebec in Montreal

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How about an intelligent heat ski jacket? A sensor measures the difference between body temperature and the temperature you like to have. If it is getting too cold, the jacket will be heated, either powered by solar cells or a power bank. Imagine what this will do to your pleasure on the slopes! Moreover, it will be easy to power up your mobile phone. No doubt it will help you last longer on the skislopes, so you can train in a more comfortable way! Similarly, you can expect cooling liquids in textiles in hot summer conditions. Great news for marathon runners!

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Schöffel INTELLITEX® Heat - worlds 1st completely heatable ski clothing

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Another brand (a little closer to home) who have created their own 100 per cent plant based fabric is Hemp Fabric Lab, a product of the Bombay Hemp Company, otherwise called Boheco. Neha Rao, its head, discussed that working with hemp has a number of environmental benefits, other than the obvious biodegradable aspect, "like taking very less water and pesticides to grow and growing at a faster rate. Hemp is the fastest CO2 to biomass converter" (yay for being carbon negative). Boheco also own B Label, India's first Hemp lifestyle brand, they focus on fully hemp based fabrics and blends. Rao goes on to explain, "natural fibres are appealing to the classes, due to the rise in prices of natural fibres. This makes it challenging for us to offer competitive pricing in the market and reach a wider audience."

All this doesn't mean throwing away your synthetic clothes, but it's also not realistic to assume you'll never buy any clothes again. Instead, shop smarter. Look at the care labels before buying. You'll be surprised how many items you purchase are made from synthetics. There are so many alternatives to polyester out there, on the flip side, it is virtually impossible to find any activewear or loungewear items which are all- plant based. The "stretchiness" in these garments come from spandex, lycra, or elastane, and although advancements in tech are moving towards a plant based solution, we're not quite there yet.

For example, Hara offers activewear and loungewear from bamboo lyocell, an alternative to cotton (and it is coloured using natural dyes, like turmeric). Bamboo only needs rainwater to grow and doesn't require any pesticides. Yes there is a little bit of spandex in there-but for the time being we will have to take the good with the bad.

Another brand to look out for is Miakoda, they are sustainable, size-inclusive, and women owned-what's not to love? Again they do have a touch of spandex-but as we've already explored, the technology just isn't quite there yet to make plant based spandex a viable option. Really the best way to shop smart is to stop and think, "Is there any way this purchase could be more sustainable?"

Now, clearly this is going to be a group effort, with brands open sourcing materials for wider use, in the hopes that a broader acceptance will allow plant based material production to compete with their synthetic counterparts-in terms of both price and supply levels-allowing more room for innovation. Perhaps it is governmental support which will push these ideals beyond the sustainable community and into mainstream societal culture. "But what can I do to help?" is the question you may ask yourself right now.

Also read:
The fast-fashion system is broken-so what happens next? Is fast beauty the next fast fashion? How fashion evolved in the time of COVID-19

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Why alternative fabrics are the need of the hour in fashion

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A new report, Fossil Fashion: The Hidden Reliance of Fashion states that the use of synthetic fibres, especially polyester, has doubled in textiles in the last 20 years, and likely to continue growing to reach nearly three quarters of total global fibre production by 2030.

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We may not begrudge our clothes and textile furnishings for forgetting to remind us of our mother-in-law's birthday, but we will expect them to play with us, get to know us, and make living our lives more efficient.

Imagine, your self-driving car notifying you of your stressful day and suggesting you play relaxing music. Your car knowing your calendar, especially the important presentation and the meetings you have back-to-back. Yet, your car improved its confidence of your stressful state by synchronising the calendar information with physiological data collected from the textiles on your car seat. As you walk through your house, your home automation system greets you by name - but there is not a camera in sight. In fact, the hallway rug can identify you just by you walking on it - your signature pace and walking style evidenced by the unique illuminated patterns that temporarily remain on the rug after you walk over it. Your kids hug you to welcome you home, one of them holding a little teddy bear that has a bowtie that looks... slightly different today. Perhaps they figured out how to code an algorithm for the bear, so that now when you squeeze it the bowtie illuminates a polka-dot pattern rather than the usual stripes.

Sounds a bit far-fetched? Not very 2016? Well, this was a sneak preview of your future. The textiles that we wear, sit, walk, or lay on will become increasingly intelligent over the next couple of years. This is all thanks to the birth of Smart Textiles - an industry born from the 'Facebook-official' marriage of the Engineering and Textile industries. However, if you think the concepts suggested in this sneak-peak to the future are a long way ahead, think again. This is not really public knowledge, but academic research is arguably 20 years ahead in innovation compared to what is available in the industry. The ideas of Google's Project Jacquard, Wearable Experiments' Nadi Yoga form-correcting trousers, Threadsmiths' clothing that can never get wet, and The Unseen's luxurious colour-changing bags and accessories all stem back to the first time Smart Textiles was defined and recognised as a potential new industry - in 1989.

Although projects related to smart textiles were present in the 1960s and 70s, in 1989, smart textiles were defined to ' sense stimuli from the environment, to react to them, and adapt to them by the integration of functionalities into their textile structure'. Since then, we have fine-tuned this definition. Smart Textiles are engineering-enhanced traditional textiles which enable the detection, reaction, and adaptation to external stimuli. Smart Textiles can be further categorised as passive, active, and intelligent respectively. Furthermore, functional electronic textiles are smart textiles integrated with electronics that are flexible, stretchable, and washable.

"Smart Textiles are Considered a Sub-category of Wearable Technology Right Now."

Fast forward to present day, and we still have not got woolly scarfs with in-built nano-scale heaters to keep us warm on a bitterly cold night about the town. Why? This is because Smart Textiles are not considered an industry in its own right yet. Actually, Smart Textiles are considered a sub-category of wearable technology right now. The Wearable Technology industry, worth 7.14 million US dollars in 2015, is expected to be worth 12.64 million US dollars in 2018. The global retail value of smart wearable devices is predicted to be worth 53.2 billion US dollars in 2019. Therefore, marketing smart textiles as a subcategory of that makes a lot of business sense. Just imagine the capabilities of your Jawbone in a textile wristband or gym-vest that still has its signature Jawbone-aesthetic but is even more comfortable on the skin.

Although commercial smart textiles are still in their infancy, the progress of smart textile electronic engineering inventions and material science research indicate the potential surge of convenience we all can gain when smart textiles are finally purchasable. Think of energy harvesting. The concept of harvesting energy that comes from the distortion of a system and storing it to power another system.

"The Progress of Smart Textile Electronic Engineering Inventions and Material Science Research Indicate the Potential Surge of Convenience"

Have you ever looked at your fitness app, looked at your statistics after a run and thought 'I must have used up a lot of energy, could we harness that to power something else? Like my dying phone battery?' Well that is possible, but perhaps not in the way you would first think. You may be thinking about the kinetic energy we could collect from our clothing whilst we exercise. We move, wiggle, and fidget our clothes every day that we wear them but recent research has revealed that, using artificial intelligence algorithms, we can distinguish between different activities by collecting data around our hips.

However, the greatest impact on our bodies due to activity is experienced at our ankles and feet - information typically utilised for gait analysis. So, what if we had energy-harvesting footwear that generated energy with every run, skip, and jump? No more dying phone battery before your favourite song during your workouts. In this way, your phone will be powering itself as you workout, and perhaps, your phone battery level will be greater than when you first started your workout. Yet, let us change our perspective here. How about we use the kinetic energy generated as we workout for not only aesthetic reasons but also to inform yourself and those around you of how much effort you are putting in? By embedding tiny sensors into the fabrics of our gym-wear, patterns on the clothing that existed purely to look attractive will be given more substance.
Also Read: Smart Sneakers To Overpower Fast Fashion Trend
Thanks to technology like thermochromic ink or nano-scale LEDs, the patterns could change colour in response to your emitted body heat or illuminate in different colours to signify how hard you are working out. Additionally, if Phase Change Materials (PCMs) were incorporated into the manufacturing of the gym-clothes you may actually sweat less. PCMs respond in a way that regulate your body temperature, so as you heat up the PCM scientifically distort resulting in cooling you down and vice versa.

"The Question is if Smart Textiles Will be Marketed, and Sold in a Way That Will Encourage Materialism or Minimalism"

The way that smart textiles can change our clothing must be an exciting challenge for the fashion industry. Once smart textiles have a reliable, scalable, and customisable way of being manufactured it will not take long for smart textiles to be sold on the roll to fashion houses globally. The question is if smart textiles will be marketed, and sold in a way that will encourage materialism or minimalism. For the engineers and industrialists, the technological or scientific specifications of these smart textiles will influence their features, applications - and depending how they are applied will effect if they are made into products seldom used, or as a product that help us form more memories and enriched experiences in our lives.

The global impact of smart textiles is a natural progression for society as we become more wirelessly connected and urbanised. Previously, FashNerd discussed the future of the Internet of Things (IoTs) and how it will affect us - concluding that improvements in healthcare, manufacturing, and retail are predicted to be positively affected the most. However today, I am not going to discuss the Internet of Things, I am going to explore the plethora of diverse sources that smart textiles can extract data from. Extracting data from smart textiles could to enhance the quality of data collected into the Cloud which can increase the efficiency of IoT.
ALSO READ: This FashionTech Collab Claims To Save Our Oceans
Wired Magazine has investigated the future of sport and sport entertainment through the advancement in sport science and wearable technology. Taking this notion further, what if we were to embed electronics into the fabrics of sport players' uniforms? I am a big fan of collecting the multitude of physiological data that can be collected from sports uniforms in real-time. They can be streamed onto the coaches' tablet during matches, giving them statistical evidence of how their players are performing. The same data collected from these uniforms could be filtered and shown on television, sport arena screens, and any other screens streaming the game. Like the statistics on sports cards we used to have as kids, comparing players to each other, but this time the access of these statistics in real-time can make us even more engaged in a live match. Why stop at uniforms? What if we embedded electronics within the fabric surface or locate them in the core of textile sporting balls - like the soccer ball, American football, or tennis ball? If they were engineered in such a way to enhance the projectile distance of the ball and the manner how they travel through the air, sport matches could reach galactic-level. Wimbeldon, the NFL, FIFA, and the Olympics would never be the same again.

Similarly to FashNerd's article on the Internet of Things, I also agree that smart textiles will have a substantially positive affect on the healthcare industry. Our urbanised way of living can be described as 'the age of the city'. As a result, the subsequent congestion and rising population causes the amount of stresses upon the healthcare system to reach its breaking point. Currently in the UK, student nurses have lost their grants to attend University, student doctors are standing up for their rights, and there is a battle for hospitals resources and attention as the population grows further. Consequently, as we globally become more urbanised it would be a welcomed change for the healthcare system to become further improved thanks to smart textiles.

If Moore's Law Continues to Hold, it Will Soon be Possible for Your Sensor-integrated Patch to Supply Your Medicine at the Correct Time With Correct Dosage."

Ideas such as technological medical tattoos sparked media attention last year, and that trend will continue in the next decade. If Moore's law continues to hold, it will soon be possible for your sensor-integrated patch to supply your medicine at the correct time with correct dosage. Bandages will help heal wounds by ensuring comfortable temperatures to aid recovery. All of this could be done by remote monitoring - doctors attending to patients through smart textile bandages and medical patches. Data being collected into the Cloud, stored into hospital databases, hence allowing hospital traffic to be better managed. More so, the security industry can also benefit from smart textiles. Using gesture control via proximity sensors embedded into gloves, we could control dangerous equipment and physically manipulate harmful chemicals without even touching them - making the workplace for those in hazardous environments safer than it would be otherwise. This may be very far-fetched but superhuman strength could be possible by wearing garments made from smart textiles. Firefighters could save even more lives by wearing improved uniforms integrated with enhanced PCMs and technological features that can allow them to lift and carry unimaginable weights.

So now, you are probably thinking 'All this blue-sky thinking is great, but will all of this happen and will I expect to order my smart textiles garment, cushion, curtains, or gait-recognising rug soon?' Searching on Google Scholar or Academic Research Databases will answer your question. The technologies of the possible smart textiles applications I conjured up in this article already exist the products themselves have not been created yet. With a couple of years, hopefully my PhD research will lessen the time we have to wait for our future Amazon order of smart textile interior furnishings to fill our smart homes.

The future of wearables will be smart textiles and the future of traditional textile furnishings will be smart textile furnishings. It is just a case of when a consensus and reliable manufacturing and powering method to create functional electronic textiles - currently in its prototype stages in engineering and textile industries - will transcend the academic realm to become reliably powered and commercially scalable. Until then, get excited - when smart textiles finally arrive commercially, we will never look at our blankets, jackets, and cushions the same way again.

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When Fashion and LifeStyle Textiles are Getting Smart

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We may not begrudge our clothes and textile furnishings for forgetting to remind us of our mother-in-law's birthday, but we will expect them to play with us, get to know us, and make living our lives more efficient. Imagine, your self-driving car notifying you of your stressful day and suggesting you play relaxing music.

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FABSCRAP Helps Fashion Brands Recycle Textile Waste | One Small Step

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Because no binders are used to hold Tyvek® together, tiny perforations remain in which allow water vapor to permeate the material while preventing water and other liquids from entering, making Tyvek® highly breathable.

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Because no binders are used to hold Tyvek® together, tiny perforations remain in which allow water vapor to permeate the material while preventing water and other liquids from entering, making Tyvek® highly breathable.

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Models used mobile phones to light up their garments at the CuteCircuit runway show

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Models used mobile phones to light up their garments at the CuteCircuit runway show

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I recently had the pleasure of meeting with Rebeccah Pailes-Friedman, an adjunct associate professor at Pratt Institute as well as an author and researcher on smart textiles and wearable technologies. With a background in active sportswear design working as Design Director at Fila USA, Champion, and Nike's Starter Division, she really understands the meaning of function and how clothing is meant to work with our bodies, not just sit on top of them. When we think of clothing, we usually just think of it as something we wear to provide coverage, convey our sense of style and protect us from the environmental elements. But, the future of clothing as we know it is about to change in a big way, and smart textiles are paving the way for this change. My chat with Rebeccah gave me some amazing insight into this industry, and what's about to come.

So, what exactly are smart textiles? Smart textiles are fabrics that have been developed with new technologies that provide added value to the wearer. Rebeccah states that "what makes smart fabrics revolutionary is that they have the ability to do many things that traditional fabrics cannot, including communicate, transform, conduct energy and even grow."

Smart textiles can be broken into two different categories: Aesthetic and Performance Enhancing. Aesthetic examples include everything from fabrics that light up to fabrics that can change color. Some of these fabrics gather energy from the environment by harnessing vibrations, sound or heat, reacting to this input. Then there are performance enhancing smart textiles, which will have a huge impact on the athletic, extreme sports and military industries. There are fabrics that help regulate body temperature, reduce wind resistance and control muscle vibration - all of which help improve athletic performance. Other fabrics have been developed for protective clothing to guard against extreme environmental hazards like radiation and the effects of space travel. The health and beauty industry is also taking advantage of these innovations, which range from drug-releasing medical textiles, to fabric with moisturizer, perfume, and anti-aging properties. Just think of all the possibilities!

Rebeccah also made it very clear that smart textiles and (wearable) technology go hand-in-hand, and that designers approach the design application differently than the tech companies do, which ends up being much more friendly to the end user. Rebeccah mentioned that "successful wearable technology companies will start with the design first, then build the technology around it", which I think is a very interesting and true insight. Think about a company like - they are all about the design, and look how loyal their customer is.

There are quite a few notable designers and companies that have jumped on the smart textile bandwagon who are doing some pretty amazing and innovative things in this space. Grado Zero Espace is an Italian based company who is doing some amazing things with textile technology and product design. Ying Gao, a fashion designer based in Geneva is creating clothing that combines urban design, architecture and multimedia, and uses sensory technologies to make garments more interactive. CuteCircuit, a London based design duo is taking their smart textiles and technology to the runway, as they showed a collection at New York Fashion Week where the models controlled what their dresses looked like on the runway through their mobile phones. There's even a company called BioCouture who is focused on bringing living and bio-based materials to fashion, sportswear and luxury brands. In essence, they are literally growing clothes from microorganisms like cellulose, fungi and algae!

This is the tip of the iceberg, and we will only start to see more and more companies and designers emerge who will create amazingly innovative smart textiles and develop technology that will undoubtedly change the way the live, forever.

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What Is The Future Of Fabric? These Smart Textiles Will Blow Your Mind

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I recently had the pleasure of meeting with Rebeccah Pailes-Friedman, an adjunct associate professor at Pratt Institute as well as an author and researcher on smart textiles and wearable technologies. With a background in active sportswear design working as Design Director at Fila USA, Champion, and Nike's Starter Division, she [...]

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You don’t have to Give up your glamour to be sustainable

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A Beginner's Guide to Sustainable Fashion

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If you skip this video to 2:50, Iris Van Herpen explains about creating a design/ silhouette with magnets, as when creating movement it creates a form texture/structure and it reminded what Dilshua showed in the powerpoint about how colour changes can work, from different angles, light, exposure etc..

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"There is so much in fashion that is unexplored" says Iris van Herpen | Virtual Design Festival

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3D Printing Blog: Tutorials, News, Trends and Resources | Sculpteo

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The "Virus Collection", your new line of 3D printed clothes

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Posted By Claire Chabaud on Jan 6, 2016 | As you probably already know 3D printing technology is spreading into many different industries, as the technology spreads it leaves new implementations, processes, and uses in its wake.

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3D printing new material clothing inspired by virus

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3D printing new material clothing inspired by virus

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3D printing new material clothing inspired by virus. Sculpteo, a famous French 3D printing service provider, launched this garment made of new 3D printing materials, which is inspired by virus cells.

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Smart Clothing for Higher Performance & Better Health

Smart clothes are a new category of apparel, enhanced with innovative technology designed to provide extra functionality, beyond traditional use.

For that, smart clothes are also referred to as high-tech clothing, intelligent clothes, smart wear, or monitor clothing.

Most smart clothes are made from advanced textiles - also known as electronic textiles, smart textiles, e-textiles.

These smart fabrics are interwoven circuitry, sensors, and additional hardware embedded for further smart functionality.

Smart clothes can connect to apps on smartphones or software on secondary devices such as laptops and PCs via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.

Via the smart sensors, these smart garments collect activity metrics and key biometrics such as distance traveled, altitude, temperature, heart rate, blood oxygenation, and more.

The data is sent to AI-powered apps on your smartphone, to help with your health and performance.

However, wireless connectivity isn't necessary to classify a garment as a type of smart clothing.

Top 15 Intelligent Clothing Right Now

After first popping to the surface in 2015, the 'e-textile and smart clothing' segment is still to reach mainstream adoption.

Yet, we're seeing the number of companies using innovative technology to create connected garments rising fast.

Past strapping gadgets to wrists, ears, and feet, the 2nd generation of smart clothing can track heart rates, monitor emotions, unlock doors, and even order coffee on your behalf.

All of that without grabbing your smartphone or tapping on your smartwatch screen.

Without further ado, these are the best 15 smart clothing brands you can buy right now, in 2022, from fitness apparel to men's overalls - streetwear ready.

Built-in haptic vibrations
$179
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If you're a beginner in Yoga, certain body postures can be quite difficult.

How do you move your body? How long do you hold your position?

Without a good instructor, if you try by yourself, you'll soon find yourself in trouble.

However, Sydney-based startup Wearable X's Nadi X pants solve all of that.

Nadi X yoga pants can sense when your yoga pose needs refining.

Using haptic feedback, the smart pants send small vibrations to the body part you need to adjust.

The built-in haptic vibrations gently pulse at the hips, knees, and ankles to encourage you to move and/or hold positions.

The trousers sync up via Bluetooth to your phone and, through the companion app, give you additional feedback.

The Nadi X app offers instructions on how to optimize each pose, in addition to proper yoga flows which can be used to curate your own personal yoga class.

Nadi X yoga pants are available for men and women in a variety of sizes and are completely machine washable after removing the battery pack which attaches to the rear of your left knee.

It comes in four sizes - XS, S, M, L - and four styles - Midnight, Midnight with black, Black/White with mesh, and Navy/Gray with mesh.

Answer calls, play music, take photos!
From $198

Levi's Commuter Trucker Jacket was the first piece of connected clothing launched from Google's Project Jacquard platform.
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By building touch and gesture-sensitive areas on the jacket sleeve, wearers are able to interact with a variety of services including music and map apps.

You can dismiss phone calls with a swipe or double-tap to get directions - all without reaching for your phone.

The smart denim jacket will smarten up your commute in more ways than you can imagine.

The Commuter x Jacquard fashion tech jacket connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth.

The jacket can screen phone calls, control music volume, and even notify you when your rideshare is nearby.

Interestingly enough, this jacket has been more recently adopted by lovers of streetwear fashion.

Measure heart rate, anaerobic data, & stress levels
From €69.95

Ambiotex's smart shirt is built with serious athletes in mind, whether you're a runner, cyclist, or live in the gym.

The compression-style fit means you need to be in pretty decent shape already to pull it off.
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The integrated sensors, along with the clip-on box, record key data such as heart rate variability, anaerobic threshold, as well as fitness and stress levels.

Data can be viewed in real-time on the companion smartphone app.

There, you get insights into your biometric data and what it means for optimizing training and recovery.

Furthermore, via the app, you have access to individual training programs.

The heart rate accuracy seemed to measure up in our testing.

However, while it doesn't break the mold for fitness-based smart garments, it does do a good job of pushing out the stats and putting those numbers to good use.

Accurate HRV monitoring
From $99

Despite a failed Kickstarter campaign, Komodo Technologies still found a way to launch its compression sleeve.

The smart clothing piece uses electrocardiogram (ECG) technology to monitor heart rate activity.

Aside from offering accurate heart rate data, the sleeve monitors sleep and workout intensity.
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The main smart module has sensors onboard to monitor body temperature, air quality, and UV rays.

While it sounds like a perfect fit for fitness lovers, the startup behind AIO seeks to measure stress levels and even detect heart inflammation and coronary heart disease as well.

Absorbs body heat for faster recovery
From $65

Athlete Recovery is Under Armour's clothing line that absorbs heat from the body and then reflects it back onto the wearer's skin.

The absorbed heat is converted into far-infrared light and more recent studies show how important infrared light is for the human body.

Overall, if you're a top-level athlete looking to enhance your muscle recovery and relaxation, this is a must-have smart clothing piece.
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Monitor babies' oxygen level & heart rate
From $149

The latest generation of Owlet Smart Sock has all the features you know and love.

It uses the same pulse oximetry technology used in hospitals to monitor the little one's heart rate, making sure his or her sleeping and breathing haven't been interrupted.

It also comes in three sizes, charges via a base station, and syncs to your iPhone or Android phone to deliver data in real-time.

New additions include improved Bluetooth range - up to 100 feet - and more accurate sensors.
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It'll also work with Owlet's new Connected Care platform, which helps to identify potential health issues, sleep irregularities, RSV, pneumonia, bronchiolitis, chronic lung disorders, and heart defects.

Monitor UV exposure
From $348

This French fashion technology company has been busy creating connected clothing, including jeans, dresses, and bikinis.

The Neviano UV Protect swimsuit collection is equipped with a removable medallion-style waterproof sensor that stops you from staying too long in the sun.

Once you've entered your skin type in the companion iOS or Android smartphone app, it'll monitor the temperature throughout the day.

Then, it sends out warnings when it is time to apply more sunscreen or get into the shade.
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Designed and made in France, Neviano's swimsuits are stylish and integrated with UV sensors.

The sensor is about half the size of an adult's thumb, waterproof, and connects to the wearer's iOS or Android device.

Overall, this is a smart swimming suit that sends you reminders to apply more sunscreen when the UV levels are high.

Built-in ECG, respiratory & activity sensors
From $169

This rare piece of smart clothing is another excellent example of technology in fashion.

The Montreal-based company has developed a connected shirt laced with smart sensors.

Along with a heart rate, breathing and, movement monitoring sensor, the shirt is fitted with Bluetooth so you can pair it with your favorite fitness apps such as MapMyRun, RunKeeper, and Strava.

Moreover, via Bluetooth, you can connect to a whole host of third-party accessories.

Data is captured in real-time and is sent to the companion app, providing insights on a range of sporty metrics.
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The data includes intensity and recovery, calories burned, fatigue level, and sleep quality.

Hexoskin's activewear is able to monitor your heart rate, calories, volume and breathing rate, steps, cadence, and even sleep, thanks to its complex construct.

The brand's smart clothes are made from high-quality Italian fabrics and the small device is hidden into a secret pouch on the shirt.

Available in short and long-sleeved versions for men and women, the smart device behind the Hexoskin can connect via Bluetooth to all types of Android and iOS smartphones.

Measure steps, speed, altitude, & distances
From $199

According to the company, Sensoria socks are infused with 100% proprietary textile sensors, whatever that means.

The socks are paired with a smart Bluetooth detachable anklet that delivers superior accuracy.

The measured data includes step counting, speed, calories consumed, altitude, and distance tracking.

The device can also track cadence and foot landing techniques as you walk or run.

However, the main benefit of Sensoria socks lies in their capacity to identify injury-prone running styles.

Heel striking, ball striking, angle cutting and running, are leveraged thanks to the smartphone app that can further create programs to coach the runner.
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The Sensoria app dashboard is designed to help the wearer achieve goals, improve performance, and reduce the risk of creating bad tendencies.

Sensoria fitness socks use advanced textile sensors built into each sock.

The sensors communicate with a connected anklet device designed to deliver precise data on how your foot lands while walking or running.

The connected app provides tips to improve your walking and running technique, and it tracks your steps, speed, altitude, and distance traveled.

A new monthly subscription also unlocks a new dashboard and new training plans.

The socks feature three textile pressure sensors, which measure the pressure placed on the foot during running.

The new Sensoria Core module, which does the brain work, is now also smaller and lighter to wear than the original.

Measures biometrics & performance
From $149

Athos is a patented system that enables the world's first smart clothing to measure how hard your muscles are working using the science of EMG (Electromyography).

This is combined with powerful AI and a mobile app that gives you insights to truly understand how your body performs.

The system has helped athletes at all levels train better and smarter, whatever your goal.

At the forefront of wearable technology designed for smart clothing, Athos shirt and shorts are sensor-filled garments that measure your biometrics and performance, as you workout.

The whole AI processing is done by Athos Core, a little capsule that snaps into your Athos apparel to collect and analyze data from the garment's sensors.

Then, it delivers the data to your mobile app via Bluetooth on your smartphone and lasts up to 10 hours on a single charge.

Athos Core can monitor your muscle activity, heart rate, and even breathing rate so it is able to provide real-time biometric tracking in real-time.
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'Core' is the name chosen by Athos designers, according to its style as a small capsule glued to the garments.

The 10g "Core" device is inconspicuous as it can hide into your pocket, or be placed on the top of your t-shirt.

Athos Core technology has been reserved for professional athletes until now, making these fitness garments excellent equipment choices for bodybuilders and people interested in active training sports.

Prevent diabetics' foot injuries
From $19.95/month

Not every bit of smart clothing is trying to help you get fitter.

And this is exactly the case with the Siren socks, which are designed to detect and prevent diabetics' foot injuries.

Siren's smart socks, also referred to as Siren's Diabetic Socks and Foot Monitoring System, use small sensors placed throughout the socks' fabric to measure the foot's temperature at six different points.

The socks' microsensors are woven into the fabric to continuously monitor the temperature.

When the sensors detect a rise in heat, such as an inflammation occurring, an alert is sent to the user, like a smartphone notification or text message.

The idea is to catch injuries before it's too late since inflammation can lead to foot ulcers.

However, with diabetics who suffer from nerve damage often experiencing numbness in the legs, these symptoms are ignored, often resulting in amputations.

Intelligent Heated Jacket
$449
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Mercury is a sleek-looking urban jacket from the Ministry of Supply.

The garment is 90% recycled, voice-controllable through assistants like Amazon Alexa, wind/waterproof, and best of all, uses machine learning to heat to your optimal temperature.

Launched on Kickstarter, the company raised more than $600,000 to make this product a reality.

There are other battery-powered thermal jackets on the market, but what's really innovative about Mercury is the machine-learning element.

It reads the temperature, motion data, and user preferences to provide the right amount of heat across a wide range of environments.

Put more simply, it knows what you want before you even tell it.
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Now, this is not a piece of smart clothing but it is worth mentioning here a good reason; the next level of smart clothing, the digital garments.

Digital garments are in fact virtual layers superimposed on one's body via AR glasses like these ones presented here.

Snapchat's latest generation of smart glasses boasts improved image quality for videos and photos.

It also comes with dual microphones for better sound recording, and it has faster transfer times.

The Spectacles 2 have more color variations than the original model.

Also, the design of the newer Veronica and Nico models was better received by the consumers.

Although the AR cameras are still noticeable on the glasses, the new designs are a bit more subtle.

By far the best way to broadcast to the world your smart clothing in form of snaps.

Clinical vital signs monitor
Coming soon!
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Founded by Sona Shah and Teresa Cauvel, two Columbia University biomedical engineering graduates, this smart baby hat is truly a life-saving piece of smart clothing.

Neopenda's hat is designed for newborn babies and measures temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood oxygen saturation.

Up to 24 baby hats can be wirelessly synced, via Bluetooth, to one tablet which will run custom software.

The idea is that doctors and nurses can check up on the vital signs of the whole room at a glance and get alerts if any changes in temperature or heart rate, say, are cause for concern.

Battery-powered exosuits
Coming soon!

This San Francisco Bay Area startup breaths new life into SRI's SuperFlex suit technology.

Seismic, located in Menlo Park, California is taking on the commercial wearables market with its modern Powered Clothing design.

The technology behind the Seismic's Powered Clothing is based on the DARPA-funded Warrior Web Project.
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SRI International developed the SuperFlex suit, an ingenious low-power exosuit that saves space and reduces heat.

The company is about to launch a wide range of battery-powered exosuits, designed to help people with reduced mobility, athlete recovery, and performance increase.

6 Smart Clothing Examples

Many companies have begun integrating technology in fashion making.

As a result, smart clothes are popping up in almost every fashion category.

Examples of the many different types of high tech clothing include:

Smart shoes: Pizza Hut has experimented with limited-edition tech sneakers that can order pizza.

Smart work clothes: Samsung has made a smart business suit that can exchange digital business cards, unlock phones, and interact with other devices.

Smart sleepwear: Under Armour's Athlete Recovery Sleepwear absorbs heat from the wearer's body while releasing infrared light to increase sleep quality and improve muscle recovery.

Smart activewear: Ralph Lauren's PoloTech t-shirts connect to a smartphone app to record fitness activity and recommend new workouts to the wearer.

Smart casual wear: Tommy Hilfiger embedded tech into garments to track product usage and reward customers for time spent wearing them.

Smart socks: Sensoria's Smart Socks can detect which part of your feet is receiving the most pressure during your run and send the data to a smartphone app.

Which Companies Make Smart Clothing Technology?

A growing number of technology companies and fashion brands are operating in the smart clothing market.

Moreover, the number of brands expected to join them is on the rise, now that the smart clothes concept has become popular.

Among some of the more well-known brands experimenting with smart clothing are Under Armour, Levi's, Tommy Hilfiger, Samsung, Ralph Lauren, and Google.

Smaller companies making a dent in the niche market include Sensora, Loomia, Komodo Technologies, and Hexoskin.

While Samsung and Google are easily the biggest tech companies investing in smart clothes, smaller companies such as OmSignal, BioMan, and Awear Solutions are also making their mark, either by releasing their own clothing lines or by collaborating with larger fashion brands.

Is Smart Clothing Expensive?

In general, due to the extra costs required to embed technology in smart clothes, they're pricier than traditional clothing.

For example, a regular jacket may retail for around $100.

However, a similar style smart jacket could set you back anywhere between $200 and $500, depending on the brand.

As with most tech products and fashion items, older smart clothes models will decrease in price as newer ones come out.

Cheaper imitations of popular products will also begin popping up more and more on online marketplaces such as Amazon, Ali Express, and Wish.

Where Can I Buy Smart Clothes?

Most smart clothes are available for purchase from a brand's official website.

For example, the official Levi's storefronts will sell only their brand of smart clothing items.

On the other hand, some big sporting goods shops will sell Under Armour and Levi's smart clothes as well.

Moreover, not just physical retail stores but also online shops like Amazon stock them too.

Are Wearables a Type of Smart Clothing?

The term 'wearables' refers to fitness trackers such as Garmin trackers or Fitbit bracelets.

'Wearable' is also used when talking about high-tech accessories such as smartwatches like the Apple Watch.

On the other hand, smart clothes refer only to advanced clothing such as swimsuits, shorts, t-shirts, or hats (like Bluetooth beanies).

But, the term is often used interchangeably with smart clothes, by consumers and companies alike.

This isn't necessarily incorrect, as the term does mean technology you can wear.

Now it's your turn...
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Which one of these smart clothing pieces is your favorite and why?

Are there any other great smart clothing products or brands you've tried and want to add to this list?

From all the smart clothing products you've ever tried, which one did you find the most useful and why?

Please leave your tips and comments below so other people can benefit from your expertise.

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15 Best Smart Clothing For Top Performance & Health (2022)

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Smart clothes are a new category of apparel, enhanced with innovative technology designed to provide extra functionality, beyond traditional use. For that, smart clothes are also referred to as high-tech clothing, intelligent clothes, smart wear, or monitor clothing. Most smart clothes are made from advanced textiles - also known as electronic textiles, smart textiles, e-textiles.

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Techtera - Smart Textiles: be smart, think with textiles!

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Regenerated nylon material Econyl is gaining traction in sustainability for its efforts in diverting waste from landfills. The material is made from rescued waste such as fishing nets and industrial plastic from oceans and landfills and converted into textile and carpet yarns for the fashion and interior industries.

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Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In recent years there have been exciting breakthroughs in wearable technologies, like smartwatches that can monitor your breathing and blood oxygen levels.

But what about a wearable that can detect how you move as you do a physical activity or play a sport, and could potentially even offer feedback on how to improve your technique?

And, as a major bonus, what if the wearable were something you'd actually already be wearing, like a shirt of a pair of socks?

That's the idea behind a new set of MIT-designed clothing that use special fibers to sense a person's movement via touch. Among other things, the researchers showed that their clothes can actually determine things like if someone is sitting, walking, or doing particular poses.

The group from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) says that their clothes could be used for athletic training and rehabilitation. With patients' permission they could even help passively monitor the health of residents in assisted-care facilities and determine if, for example, someone has fallen or is unconscious.

The researchers have developed a range of prototypes, from socks and gloves to a full vest. The team's "tactile electronics" use a mix of more typical textile fibers alongside a small amount of custom-made functional fibers that sense pressure from the person wearing the garment.

According to CSAIL graduate student Yiyue Luo, a key advantage of the team's design is that, unlike many existing wearable electronics, theirs can be incorporated into traditional large-scale clothing production. The machine-knitted tactile textiles are soft, stretchable, breathable, and can take a wide range of forms.

"Traditionally it's been hard to develop a mass-production wearable that provides high-accuracy data across a large number of sensors," says Luo, lead author on a new paper about the project that is appearing in this month's edition of Nature Electronics. "When you manufacture lots of sensor arrays, some of them will not work and some of them will work worse than others, so we developed a self-correcting mechanism that uses a self-supervised machine learning algorithm to recognize and adjust when certain sensors in the design are off base."

The team's clothes have a range of capabilities. Their socks predict motion by looking at how different sequences of tactile footprints correlate to different poses as the user transitions from one pose to another. The full-sized vest can also detect the wearers' pose, activity, and the texture of the contacted surfaces.

The authors imagine a coach using the sensor to analyze people's postures and give suggestions on improvement. It could also be used by an experienced athlete to record their posture so that beginners can learn from them. In the long term, they even imagine that robots could be trained to learn how to do different activities using data from the wearables.

"Imagine robots that are no longer tactilely blind, and that have 'skins' that can provide tactile sensing just like we have as humans," says corresponding author Wan Shou, a postdoc at CSAIL. "Clothing with high-resolution tactile sensing opens up a lot of exciting new application areas for researchers to explore in the years to come."

More information: Yiyue Luo et al. Learning human-environment interactions using conformal tactile textiles, Nature Electronics (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41928-021-00558-0

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'Smart clothes' that can measure your movements

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In recent years there have been exciting breakthroughs in wearable technologies, like smartwatches that can monitor your breathing and blood oxygen levels. But what about a wearable that can detect how you move as you do a physical activity or play a sport, and could potentially even offer feedback on how to improve your technique?

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WHAT IS NIKE DRI-FIT?

Nike Dri-FIT technology is an innovative polyester fabric designed to help keep you dry so you can more comfortably work harder, longer. Dri-FIT's unique high-performance microfiber construction supports the body’s natural cooling system by wicking away sweat and dispersing it across the fabric's surface to evaporate faster.

Dri-FIT clothes are most effective as a base layer or on their own—direct contact with your body means you stay dryer. And Dri-FIT's sweat-managing properties are permanent for the life of the clothing.

So go ahead—sweat.

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The KIMM research team led by Dr. Bongkyun Jang and Dr. Seungmin Hyun at the Department of Nano-Mechanics has developed a battery with high safety and stretchability by mimicking the design of the scales and flexible joints found in the structure of snake scales. Upon zooming in on the battery, one can see that it consists of a hexagonal battery and flexible electrical interconnections. The stretchable structure is realized by the flexible interconnections that can freely fold and unfold. Credit: Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM)

The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM), an institute under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science and ICT, has developed a flexible, stretchable battery that bends and stretches like a snake. This new battery could have a wide range of uses, such as in energy storage technology and disaster situations, with applications in various types of devices, from soft robots to wearable devices.

The KIMM research team, led by Senior Researcher Dr. Bongkyun Jang and Principal Researcher Dr. Seungmin Hyun at the Department of Nano-Mechanics, developed a stretchable battery structure whose characteristics are based on the structure of snake scales. On August 16, the team's findings were published online in Soft Robotics.

Like the boa constrictor that swallowed the elephant in the novella "The Little Prince," a snake's individual scales, while rigid, can fold together to protect against external impact. They also possess structural characteristics that allow them to be highly stretchable and move flexibly.

The KIMM research team developed the highly stretchable battery with an excellent stability and performance by fabricating a mechanical meta-structure mimicking a snake's scale. Unlike conventional wearable devices, in which the device's frame and the battery are combined in a tight formation, this new technology enables flexible movement by connecting several small, hard batteries in a scale-like structure.

The flexible, stretchable battery technology developed by the research team of Dr. Bongkyun Jang and Dr. Seungmin Hyun at the KIMM Department of Nano-Mechanics is applied to a soft robot with moveable joints like a snake to observe its flexibility when moving. The battery can be attached to various types of robots that crawl or move in a serpentine fashion, morphing its shape accordingly depending on their movement while, at the same time, providing power to actuate untethered robots. Credit: Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM)

To ensure the battery's safety, the research team also minimizes deformation of the materials composing battery by optimal design of the scale-like structure. Also, the shape of each battery cell was optimized to achieve high capacity per a unit size.

Designing the shape of the battery cell and the connective components were the key aspects of this technological achievement. Small, hexagonal battery cells resembling snake scales were connected with polymer and copper material that use a hinge mechanism to fold and unfold. This design also facilitates economical mass-production, because the battery can be made by cutting and folding flexible electrodes with a manufacturing process inspired by the art of origami.

This new technology can be implemented in energy storage devices found in wearable soft robots for humans, which require soft and flexible energy storage devices, or for those found in rehabilitation medical devices for the elderly and the sick who need physical assistance. In addition, these batteries could be useful as power supply devices for soft robots that are used on site during disasters to help conduct rescue missions. Thanks to their ability to move flexibly and freely change shape, robots equipped with these batteries can be used to access narrow spaces blocked off by obstacles during such disaster situations.

In the future, the KIMM research team hopes to develop technology that can increase the storage capacity of soft energy storage devices. The team also hopes to develop multi-functional soft robots that combine artificial muscles with soft robot actuation technology.

The flexible, stretchable battery developed by the research team of Dr. Bongkyun Jang and Dr. Seungmin Hyun at the KIMM Department of Nano-Mechanics is shown on an individual's arm and hand. The battery is not only capable of conformably attaching to the shape of the human body, but can also morph freely to match the wearer's movement. Credit: Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM)

Dr. Bongkyun Jang stated that by applying the structure and design of snake scales, the KIMM research team developed a battery that is not only safe to use, but also retains its flexibility and stretchability. He also added that, down the road, he and his team aim to continue conducting follow-up research and development, so that this technology can be used for rehabilitation medical care and disaster relief and help ensure the health and safety of the general public.

More information: Myoung-Ho Kim et al, Bioinspired, Shape-Morphing Scale Battery for Untethered Soft Robots, Soft Robotics (2021). DOI: 10.1089/soro.2020.0175

Provided by National Research Council of Science & Technology

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A flexible, stretchable battery capable of moving smoothly like snake scales

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The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM), an institute under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science and ICT, has developed a flexible, stretchable battery that bends and stretches like a snake. This new battery could have a wide range of uses, such as in energy storage technology and disaster situations, with applications in various types of devices, from soft robots to wearable devices.

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Mylo - Vegan leather used by Stella McCartney and more, designed to wear like real leather 

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Mylo - Vegan leather used by Stella McCartney and more, designed to wear like real leather 

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Mylo is a sustainable leather alternative made from mycelium, the root-like system of mushrooms.

As a material, Mylo delivers the timeless aesthetic and luxurious feel of leather, but without the planetary impact associated with raising livestock.

While cows require extensive resources and years to raise, the mycelium used to make Mylo is grown in less than two weeks inside a state-of-the-art vertical farming facility powered by 100% renewable electricity.

The material that started a " mushroom leather" revolution, Mylo™ was created by the scientists and engineers at Bolt Threads and is a mycelium-based leather of choice for world-class brands including adidas, Stella McCartney, and more.

Together with our growing network of brand partners, we've developed Mylo to meet the highest possible aesthetic and performance standards for high-end, lower impact products.

Why Unleather?

Leather is an amazing material. But at the scale it's used today, it is simply unsustainable.

The global cattle industry - where the majority of leather comes from - has a massive environmental impact,

Because Mylo doesn't require the enormous amount of energy, land and calories needed to raise livestock, we can offer customers all the beloved properties of leather but without the devastating environmental impact of cattle.

Unleather™

[ən-leT͟Hər]

The radical act of choosing products made sustainably with infinitely renewable mycelium over animal and synthetic-based materials.

Eager to get a feel for Mylo? Get in touch to explore the possibilities of unleather.

FAQ

Mylo™ material is a sustainable leather alternative made from mycelium, the root-like structure of mushrooms, created by the scientists and engineers at Bolt Threads, a material solutions company based in Berkeley, California with manufacturing facilities in The Netherlands.

The process to make Mylo™ material starts with reproducing what naturally occurs beneath the forest floor. Inside a vertical farming facility powered by 100% renewable energy, fungal cells are mixed with sawdust and organic material to grow dense mycelial networks that rise from the substrate and form soft foam-like mats.

Once mature, the mycelium is harvested and the remaining substrate is composted. Guided by Green Chemistry principles, the mats are processed and transformed into sheets of soft, earthy biomaterial ready for surface texture and finishing by an LWG gold-rated tannery.

For a closer look at the process, visit our Material page.

Where can I purchase Mylo products?

Products made from Mylo™ material are available directly from our growing network of brand partners. Product availability, release dates, distribution, and points of sale are controlled by partners individually.

Sign up to receive the Mylo Newsletter and get updates on upcoming product launches.

Get the latest news by subscribing to the Mylo Newsletter.

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Source: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model ( GLEAM) and United States Environmental Protection Agency ( US EPA)

Created by Bolt Threads. If you have questions about the accessibility of this website or require accommodation due to a disability, please contact us for immediate assistance.

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Meet Mylo™ - the sustainable Unleather™ made from infinitely renewable mycelium. Explore this revolutionary material, discover products, and more.

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