From Wearables to Soft-Wear: Seamlessly Integrating Interactive Technology into Fashionable Apparel

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In industries where functionality is of predominant importance such as within sports, healthcare, security and safety, wearable technologies have already been successfully integrated into clothing (example?).
Not so within everyday wear. Smart Fashion is not yet common consumer technology, and besides some exceptional examples (which are?), electronically augmented fashion is generally known as being illuminated outfits reserved for stage performance or other special events. In this paper we discuss how Smart Fashion can find its way into everyday clothing. Which obstacles must be overcome and what design requirements must be fulfilled to seamlessly integrate interactive technology into fashionable apparel.
An interdisciplinary design research project at the Trier University of Applied Sciences constituted the basis for our investigations. The research is based on a cooperation between the Department of Fashion and the Department of Intermedia Design. It focuses mainly on psychological design aspects as well as on semiotic and aesthetic issues and will take place until the end of 2013.

Applying new technologies onto existing products often meets strong resistance, due to the fact that we already have an established conceptions about these everyday artifacts. Along with these conceptions come certain habits and behaviors related to almost every product we use, and which are very hard to challenge(some ref would be nice here). Especially non-tech items such as every day apparel are difficult to convert into high-tech products(or here).
There are generally two ways of approach to this dilemma(statement, i.e. ref or research result?): The technology can physically completely disappear into a known product, i.e. a textile. In this c...

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...ly legible to the wearer due the the arbitrary character of symbolic representation, or the signals are invisible or imperceptible except to the wearer.
The privacy level requirements may differ from private space to situations in public and needs to be defined by the user according to location or situation(why?). Here lies great potential for ambient displays and other calm(subtle?) technologies.

In addition to the analysis of the functional and psychological aspects of smart apparel, we investigated new methods to generate authenticity and provide individualizations by means of new technologies.
The digital production possibilities from CNC to 3d-printing can produce highly individualized outfits from modular systems up to one-off series. Comparable to niche markets in the music business they will find their buyers, as explained by Chris Anderson (long tail).

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