At Smart Textiles Salon 2011 in Ghent, Belgium, Riccardo Marchesi of @plugandwear and I began the conversation, “What will expand the field of Smart Textiles first, fashion or therapy?”
The room was full of ~20 presenters with wearable tech – from woven heart rate sensors to silicon circuits – embedded in fashions.
Therapeutic designs range from baby blankets embedded with blue bili lights to prevent newborns from jaundice, to wheelchairs that monitor your posture, like the Odith: Interactive Posture Monitoring System.
On the fashion side we have chilly children monitored jackets for warmth, firefighters with jackets to help save themeselves, and super heroes who just do fantastic feats.
The Profitex is a sensor masterpiece, as it is a hero to keep the fireman safe.
Flexible Circuits worn by inflexible children.
UMIC Healthnet Shirt with woven EKG (heart rate monitor)
SENSOREE Mood Sweater‘s emotive technology.
And, of course, a few superhero designs.
Will high fashion or health monitoring devices lead the rise of electronic fashion?
What if designs were both therapeutic and fashionable superheroes?