Beauty with brains: Meet e-textiles

Science has come a long way and as long as there are curious innovators and various mysteries, science will keep on progressing. For now, let us talk about the technology advancements made. Impacting every possible field, technology has been welcomed in the fashion world too. Innovative designers have always looked for something new, clubbing science and technology with fashion to create something entirely out of this world. E-textiles are one such new invention that will revolutionize the world of fashion! The alluring aspect of e-textiles is the seamless integration between the fabric and diverse electronic elements. 

  

E-textiles is also known as Electronic textiles, smart/intelligent textiles/fabrics. These textiles are basically fabrics that enable computing, digital components and electronics to be embedded in them. Designers have converted these intelligent clothing into wearable technology. There are few features that are attributed to this innovation. The fabric is capable of changing colors along with displaying animating images. E-textiles are loaded with technological elements, yet surprisingly comfortable to wear. This branch of technology that deals with creating e-textiles is called Fibertronics.
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The elements required in creating this fabric has always been present in the nature, hence, the exploration and experiments have been conducted for a good century now. Ever since electricity came in, designers and engineers conducted experiments to achieve wearable technology. They were successful in creating illuminated necklace, hats; brooches etc. In fact, Electric Girl Lighting Company, a late 1800s company could provide light-studded evening gowns.

Museum of Contemporary Craft, New York City held a  pioneering exhibition during the 1968 called Body Covering which focused on the relationship between technology and apparel. The highlight of the show was the clothing that could inflate and deflate light up, and heat and cool itself. The collection was by Diana Dew, a designer who created a line of electronic fashion, including electroluminescent party dresses and belts that could sound alarm siren. Harry Wainwright created the first fully animated sweatshirt consisting of fiber optics, LEDs and a microprocessor that controlled the individual frames of animation resulting in a full color cartoon on the surface of apparel. In 1955, he invented the first machine that enabled fiber optics to be machine into fabrics. Wainwright continued and during an event 2012 demonstrate his inventive creation that changes color using any smartphone, indicate callers on mobile phones without a digital display and contains WIFI security features that protect purses and personal items from theft.

Lean Buechley's Creations

MIT researchers too began to develop merging the fabrics and electrons. They faced challenges when the explored integrating digital electronics with conductive fabrics and developed a method for embroidering electronic circuits. Lean Buechley from the MIT Media Lab created one of the first commercially available wearable Arduino based microcontrollers, called Lilypad Arduino. 

Lynne Bruning's Creations

Another innovator Lynne Bruning with her collection has got E-textiles more firmly in the wearable technology category. 

Many designers are experimenting with the fabrics fusing different elements, but E-textiles are by far the most fascinating fusion. With the progress in Fibertronics, that day is not far when we will make a call or listen to music by just touching the sleeve of our top!