5 Lucy McRea started at Philips the skin project, this is all about emotional sensing. [20070222 blog]
6 myCoat project where we worked in collaboration with HKU students Fashion, Interaction Design, Media Management and Design Technology, finished Januari 2007
7 Bardley Quinn 2002
8 For example Nike and Pia Myrvold, www.cybercouture.com
9 Rob Kranenburg 2006 lecture
Communication is the main function of today’s clothing. It needs to be rethought in this postmodern time when social communication methods develop so extremely fast. Technical developments can improve the function of fashion by the use of smart- or dynamic textiles. These are textiles that react to their environment or to the emotion of the wearer.
‘In future, technology needs to do whatever we want by just feeling what we want.’5 From this we can conclude that emotional sensing devices will become very important. Plus, you have to decide if you want to show or hide your emotions. And what about your friends? Do you want to show them to everybody? These questions spawned form the myCoat project.[>>]6 Wearable electronics focus mainly on how we communicate. ‘The vision of fashion technologists promises a future so rich in wireless systems that we may not even realize the technology is there at all.’7
The introduction Web 2.0 allows consumers to interact directly with companies or even allows them to design the garments themselves.8 This will have huge impact on the production and fashioning of clothes. It won’t be mass made anymore; production will be individualized with uniquely made products tailored for each consumer’s needs.
People are now quite familiar with communication tools like internet: Every aspect of our life has to be online. But also the internet of things is coming up. ‘Not only people have to be online 24 hours a day, also things can’t be missed anymore.’9 This will influence fashion, read more about it in the next paragraph.
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