SPECIFIC FABRICS

Impact of Specific Fabrics on a Range of Garments

Specific Fabrics

Introduction

The digital 1990s have had great impact on the lives of modernized peoples, creating the reality that we can communicate and have presence in ways never before experienced. We e-mail and chat in real time, message and talk from mobile telephones, and have presence and persist in virtual text and image websites. The overall aesthetic of this digital experience manifests itself to us in two distinct ways. One is based on the technology of the 1960s, the wires, antennae, hard molded plastic, control panels, keyboards, and screens that we find in mobile phones and digital interfaces.

The other is that of the virtual presence, either in disembodied text, or the threedimensionally rendered virtual worlds of computer games that have become an icon of the late twentieth century. However, an inevitable human desire has seen the beginnings of a merging of these plastic, metal, and silicon technologies with the more intimate, tactile textures and social functions of garments and textiles. The potential of textiles and garments that are responsive, active, interactive, and aware now presents itself, using technologies inherited from other craft fields such as medical sensing and information technology. This area of investigation has been pursued to a significant extent in the area known as “wearable technologies.” However, this article assumes the maturing of a field in which revolutionary software and display/sensing technologies are merging with textiles to produce totally natural feeling and/or looking fabrics that can not only change their overall color, but can display complex patterns, as well as respond to stimuli from wearer and environment, both in the real world, and the virtual. The intersection of digital technologies with textiles is changing the relationship between garment and the body. This article will consider first the effects of digital technologies on the tangible, actual real world of textiles, garment, and the body, and then explore the social significance of clothes in virtual worlds.

Tangible Digital Textiles and Garments

The Italian company Luminex has produced a novel fabric that includes a special fiber-optic strand that allows garments to glow visibly in reduced lighting conditions. It is already possible to purchase batterypowered tablecloths, handbags, and “mini-tops” from their online store (Luminex 2003). The key feature of Luminex products is that they literally shine, emitting light (Figure 2).

This product range illustrates the potential adapted from information technologies, but it also depends upon novelty, rather than function, for most of its application at the present time. There are immediate and obvious uses in safety, entertainment, and interior design, but it seems less applicable to everyday wear. It is an unusual occasion or event in which you want an article of clothing to look like a Christmas tree. Another alternative product being developed is International Fashion Machines' Electric Plaid (International Fashion Machines 2003). While International Fashion Machines (IFM) have also experimented with the inclusion of luminous light points in garments (the Firefly dress), it is their Electric Plaid that seems to offer a revolution ...