Programmable clothes going commercial

Can programmable clothes make fashion really sustainable? It could because when we can reprogram fashion so we do not have to buy all those new clothes to be fashionable. In the digital era textiles have become a platform for electronic communication. But the price of this new trend in fashion were high. The same for the limitations of the materials used. But now there are efforts in commercializing the technology. Technology which allows the wearer to project any electronic text or image he or she desires of clothes. Will this be the final breakthrough?

CuteCircuit is a well know name of the company which leads the trend of programmable clothing. The company started in 2004 by designers Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz. CuteCircuit recently introduced InfiniTshirt, a programmable top that features a 1,024-pixel screen of full-color LEDs. The wearer controls the shirt’s visuals, words, and tweets—via Bluetooth and with CuteCircuit’s Q App. InfiniTshirt grew in 2012 out of a promotional campaign for whiskey company Ballantine’s. The prototype, called tshirtOS, did not go into production due to cost and fragility. But after further developing the technology, CuteCircuit renamed the piece and began making it itself. InfiniTshirt isn’t cheap. The pricing starts at 850 British pounds. It could be the future of fashion. Another example is Interactive textile Infinite Canvas, developed by Switch Embassy. The plug-and-play fabric system, which displays text and images on flexible, all-white LED screens, developed out of the San Francisco-based company’s efforts to create a more resilient and less expensive tshirtOS. Foldable and machine-washable. Infinite Canvas uses only white microLEDs on its fabric background. Panels are available “in any shape, size, or geometry. They also can be sewn together, just like any flat fabric pattern. That means multiple panels can appear on larger items such as coats and pants.

As with InfiniTshirt, Infinite Canvas’ content is controlled with an app that can change the LEDs’ brightness, track battery levels, and connect to a server of uploadable predesigned images or animations. Although Switch Embassy is positioning Infinite Canvas as a development solution for fashion and interior-design companies, it also plans to use it for its own products. The company has debuted one—a handbag, called Theia—and is in the midst of doing market research to finalize production and price points for others, including a T-shirt. Our clothes will become interactive. We see more and more fashion labels but even Google (Google’s Project Jacquard) working on it. And with more different commercial organisations working on it the cost will go down. Do people really want to buy and wear tweeting, flashing clothes? Probably not everyone even if you can turn the functions off. Programmeble clothes could remove the need to amass a large wardrobe, as you can constantly change the design and patterns on a single piece. A compelling futuristic thought.