Core77 - Materials and Processes

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		Slipping Into Smart Fabrics In the mid 1980's a brash, self-educated computer scientist named Jaron Lanier strapped on a wired glove that controlled computer functionality. The following two decades have exposed an elastic relationship between the body and the objects we wear, the technology we manipulate and the space we inhabit. As the chasms between sciences, social behavior and the body are filled, new ideas about interaction, personalization and the obfuscation and penetration of pre-existing environments are changing how we choose to exist within our surroundings. Across the runways of Milan, Paris and London fashion designers are leading a muted charge. None more confident than a young Cypriot named Hussein Chalayan. Born in the Turkish village of Nicosia in 1970, Chalayan left his small island for the excitement and trend setting of London in the mid 1990's. He quickly made his mark on the fashion community winning British designer of the year honors in 1999 and again in 2000. It was during that heady time that Chalayan wowed the fashion world with an avant-garde collection that owed its success to a mix of fashion forward styling and the convergence of industrial and fashion design. Part of his showcase presentation for London's millennial fashion week included four fitted chair covers that were unwrapped from their furniture skeletons and rewrapped onto the bodies of his models. The showstopper was a low-slung table that hitched to a model's waist and transformed into an elegant and modern skirt whose pyramid of burnished circles cascaded elegantly down a lithe torso. In pushing the envelope Chalayan reminded us that clothing is much more than what we wear and that the fabrics we layer over our bodies complement our need to define and connect to shared spaces. Just as Chalayan has tested the waters of a more industrial pool, Yves Behar of Fuseproject recently returned the favor with a stunning cashmere windbreaker created for the New York fashion house of Lutz & Patmos. Behar is an award winning industrial designer whose packaging work for Philou was included in Skin, the recent exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt national design museum. He was also commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to design and create a pair of futuristic "learning shoes" that were exhibited in Design Afoot, a show that unveiled countless objects of beauty for the foot fetish set. Behar's footwear included a chip embedded in the sole that mines data on the wearer's habits. With this information the next pair of shoes can be ultra-customized. The designer's limited edition cashmere piece for Lutz & Patmos is riding a fashion wave defined by a new generation of smart fabrics. That's no surprise coming from Behar, an avid surfer. His windbreaker has been treated with Dupont's new Teflon fabric protection. No longer a spray on, Dupont has perfected a process that takes place at the textile mills and protects individual fabric fibers at a nano scale. It allows clothing created with their Teflon process to behave, feel and wear like traditional fabrics while enjoying the benefits of true waterproofing and stain resistance. Teflon is just the tip of the iceberg. Research into the production and use of smart fabrics is gaining steam like a runaway freight train. With the help of corporate materials labs and government research funding, smart fabrics or "techstiles" may have already found a place in your closet alongside that linen Armani suit. The first to market is active wear, which is already incorporating hi-tech fabrics into their construction and makes comfort in extreme conditions a reality. The Italian design company Corpo Nove unveiled the Absolute Zero jacket. Constructed with aerogel, the world's lightest solid substance, the Italians are ready to take us to the Arctic Circle in style. Aerogel, developed by NASA, is silicon based with a sponge like structure. Because it is 99.8% empty space it can trap and warm air more effectively than other products, making it a perfect insulator against the sub zero temperatures encountered by the Mars Pathfinder mission, where it was used to great success, or those howling winds along Central Park West. In the battle against the elements, renowned Japanese costume designer Eiko Ishioka unveiled her Concentration Coat at the last winter Olympic games in Salt Lake City. The coat, designed for the Swiss and Canadian alpine ski teams and manufactured by the sportswear company Descente, was developed to give athletes a moment of tranquility and quiet before competing in their event. Aside from its unique styling, gray and boxy, the Concentration Coat is a warm, quiet cocoon whose fabric is impregnated with minerals that release negative ions. Negative ions are supposed to have a healing affect on the body (and hopefully enhance performance). The Swiss and Canadian skiers won only one medal between them in Salt Lake City but the coats were a sensation with athletes throughout the Olympic village. Smart fabrics aren't just about staying warm. Mipan Magic Silver, developed by the South Korean textile firm Hyosung Corp., is a silvered yarn that can kill harmful microbes including pneumonia, yellow staphylococcus and colitis. Its applications are already being tested in sportswear and the health care industry, and Hyosung expects to produce 400 tons of the fabric a year. Apple Computer, known for personalizing the technology experience, has collaborated with the snowboard and apparel company Burton, and textile technology company SOFTswitch, on limited edition outerwear for Apple iPod users. The Burton Amp is a three-layer Gore Tex jacket that includes a touch sensitive, textile data strip stitched right onto the sleeve. Users have the freedom to manipulate their peripheral device without fumbling or bulky wiring. SOFTswitch and other companies including International Fashion Machines, Sensatex, and Knowear, are already thinking about (and designing) the next generation of interactive clothing. With early research by the MIT Media Lab and grants from the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA is the research arm of the U.S. Department of Defense), these companies are unlocking answers to creating fully digital fabrics. MIT's work with silk organza, a metallic fabric that has been used in India for a century (it's made using silk thread wrapped in a thin copper foil) has lead to a new understanding of fiber conductivity and resistance, making products like the Burton Amp possible. Following MIT's lead, scientists at Georgia Tech developed the Smart Shirt which includes optical and electrical conductive fibers that monitor vital signs including heart and breathing rates and body temperature. The fabric, now marketed by Sensatex, will target athletes who want to measure performance, parents concerned about sudden infant death syndrome, and the military which may one day use the technology to remotely identify the location and severity of wounds suffered by soldiers. If digital fabrics that can control and respond weren't enough, one company is already working on electronic displays thin and supple enough to be worn as clothing. E-Ink, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is working on electronic ink, a material composed of millions of microcapsules (each about the diameter of a human hair) that contain positively and negatively charged color particles suspended in a clear fluid. When electric fields are applied to the capsules the charged particles are pulled in different directions and either of the two colors (just black and white so far) is made visible by being pulled to the top of the capsule. In Palo Alto, industrial design firm Lunar Design has already begun thinking about how electronic ink could be used as a fashion device. Their explorations resulted in the BLU jacket, which has been winning numerous design awards and was also included in Skin at the Cooper Hewitt. Tad Toulis of Lunar noted about BLU, "We've long considered clothing to be utilitarian as well as adorning... how will our understanding of clothing change and how can this new understanding impact social behaviors?" Toulis strikes while the iron is hot and his anticipation of having to redefine relationships is prescient. But with so much intrigue and potential surrounding smart fabrics, having trouble matching a pair of Manolo Blahniks to a Prada handbag may no longer be considered a fashion emergency. Amos Klausner Amos Klausner is the director of the San Francisco chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts