London-based designer Amy Rainbow Winters showed just how this is done in a FashionWare area at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
On display was a dress she made of fabric with fibre optics woven into the fabric and sensors in the sleeves. Light travelled through the cloth, which glowed blue. With a touch of a sleeve, Winters changed the color.
"If you feel like having a purple, the dress will be purple," Winters said.
"If you later feel like having red, you have red. You just look at the sleeve and decide what color you want."
Winters designs fabric and clothes, then collaborates with technologists to made the materials needed. She works with many techno-fabrics, including some that react to sound, sun or water.
Nearby she had on display a dress with motion sensors in the cloth that changed colors if the wearer jumped.
Fabric she creates can be made into just about any garment.
"The fabric can be anything; pants, shirts, dresses, hats...," Winters said.
"If someone is going to wear a pair a Google Glasses they might as well wear fibre-optic pants," she said.
Her creations are custom made and have been used in entertainment productions such as music videos or in ads. She is not making clothes for the ready-to-wear market.
"I've had some retailers as me about stocking my products but you have to be really careful because they are so expensive to make," Winters said.
"They are showpieces; but if people have a couple of thousand dollars to spare here it is," she added.
Winters says the fibre-optic dresses cost about US$3,000 to make, but the price can rise depending on the design. Her creations are on display online at Rainbow Winters.
Source: AFP via I-Net Bridge
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