The Next Black: A Film About The Future of Clothing

With the objective of anticipating future washing needs and contributing to making the clothing industry more sustainable, ‘The Next Black’ is a 45-minute documentary that explores the future of clothing, produced by home appliance manufacturer AEG together with production company House of Radon. Some of the most innovative companies express their opinions on clothing and its future whilst answering questions such as: Will the mass consumption of clothing continue to escalate? Or will we return to creating quality and caring about what we wear? Will the future be centered around smart clothing and new technologies? Or will we find innovation within organic and traditional methods?

The progressive people that are answering these questions include Rick Ridgeway, environmentalist, mountaineer and Vice President of Environmental Initiatives at Patagonia one of the most sustainable companies in the fashion industry,Nancy Tilbury, co-founder and director of Studio XO, a company that specializes in the area where fashion meets technology, Matt Hymers, project manager of Team Elite System, one of adidas’ latest inventions (who demonstrates the system of woven sensors in the shirt that send real-time data of the players’ performance), Suzanne Lee, the founder of Biocouture Ltd, which works with materials grown from living organisms and lastly, Sophie Mather, Innovation Director of the Yeh Group which has pioneered a new way to dye clothes using zero water.

Hussein Chalayan’s Transformer Dresses

Hussein Chalayan’s Transformer dresses from his Spring/Summer 2007 Collection, was amazing marriage between Fashion and Technology. It you haven't come across it before check it out its clever stuff...

Philips Design Probes

Philips Design Probes is a dedicated ‘far-future’ research initiative to track trends and developments that may ultimately evolve into mainstream issues that have a significant impact on business.

The Design Probes program was established to generate insights and explore far-future lifestyle scenarios based on rigorous research in a wide range of areas. Probes projects are intended to understand future socio-cultural and technological shifts with a view to developing nearer-term scenarios. These scenario explorations are often carried out in collaboration with experts and thought leaders in different fields, culminating in a ‘provocation’ designed to spark discussion and debate around new ideas and lifestyle concepts.

Philips Design Probes

Talk2MyShirt

Talk2MyShirt is dedicated to Wearable Electronics in the purest sense: Textile based, Clothing and Fashion Accessories. talk2myShirt is created first of all for consumers. This site gives reviews and background information on products. It also provides an overview of the technologies involved.

Don’t Break My Heart is a wearable, colour-coded distance warning system prototype for cyclists to wear on their back. It incorporates a sewable LilyPad Arduino microcontroller, RGB LED, proximity sensor, conductive thread and fabrics to create an easily Velcro-ed on and off (moveable between garments & bags) and highly visible alert for traffic traveling behind cyclists.

Electric Foxy

Electric Foxy is a blog and resource on fashion that uses technology. It investigates on-body experiences that are beautiful, wearable and connect with software and services resulting in a new aesthetic of form and behavior that become a core part of our expression, our identity, and our individuality.

Ping from Dos Rios on Vimeo.

Vanilla K Jacket

Vanilla "k" from Alexander Reeder on Vimeo.

The Vanilla Series is a line of jackets connecting directly to your iPhone, allowing you dynamic control. Vanilla is modular so you can choose your own set of sensors; or go with the main "a" and "k" series. Vanilla "a" has five subtle indicators near the cuff which can be used in various ways. By default they indicate turns as your biking with the flick of a wrist.

Vanilla "k" is all about what you have to say with an 8 x 8 LED matrix embedded into the back of the jacket. Alexander Reeder

Angel Chang

Angel Chang is a New York-based designer who works with print and fashion. She has explored the possibilities of smart fabrics and garments, including clothes with built in electronics (that mp3 players dock to, for example - the garment shown has speakers in the hood) and recent print developments such as thermochromatic dyes.