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PARIS, Dec. 16, 2003 — Who says geeks can’t look good? It was like any other Paris fashion show: a long rectangular runway, special guests in front-row seats and lots of champagne. Only at this event, technology buffs mingled among the fashionistas.
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Last month’s i-wear fashion show, part of the recent European Science and Technology Week, presented the latest intelligent garments, some of them enhanced by small tech.
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Take, for example, the “advanced sailing suit.” It applies the concept of thermal management, which simply means keeping cool when it’s hot and warm when it cold. The suit is based on a material called Diaplex, which applies what scientists call micro-Brownian motion.
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Brownian motion is the random movement of microscopic particles suspended in liquids or gases. What Diaplex does is harness the speed at which these particles move at different temperatures. If it gets hot, the signal is sent to create micropores in the fabric’s polymer membrane.
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“So if you wear this against you skin, it can allow the moisture, the sweat from your body, to pass through the garment,” said David Raitt, senior technology transfer officer at the European Space Agency (ESA). “That’s because the warmth of the perspiration makes the pores in the garment open.” When temperatures drops, micropores in the material automatically close and the outfit becomes waterproof.
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“We developed this for a Swedish lady called Pia L’Obry who was taking part in a transatlantic race between La Rochelle in France and Brazil,” Raitt explained. “The boats are only 6.5 meters long, so they’re very small boats and she was unhappy with the existing clothing she had to wear, simply because she had to wear 15 layers of clothes to stay warm and dry.”
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Also at the i-wear show was a product designed to keep babies safe. It’s called Babyguard (PDF, 227 KB), which was billed as an intelligent chest pad meant to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The product is based on respiratory inductive plethysmography, a technology originally developed for use in space to monitor breathing.
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A more complex version of the Babyguard has been used in SIDS tests conducted in Germany, Belgium and Portugal over the last two years. Belgian engineering company Verhaert, which made the product for the tests, is interested in devising a consumer application for parents.
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“The chest pads would include miniaturized sensors,” said Dany Robberecht, Verhaert’s marketing manager. “Two types of sensors can be used, either those based on the solenoids principle, which measure changes in surface or sensors based on strain gauges, elastic-type things which register motion.” The pad is to be plugged into a small box that will sound an alarm if the baby’s breathing becomes irregular or stops. The alarm would not only call the parents over, but hopefully also wake up the baby in the process.
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And for the world traveler, there is the shape memory shirt, also based on space technology. “It’s a self-ironing shirt that you can pack in your bag and then watch it return to its original shape when you take it out,” said Stefano Carosio, of the Italian engineering firm D’Appolonia, which works on technology transfer for ESA. “It’s what we call the traveler’s dream.” The shirt retains its shape thanks 20-micron-diameter thread, made of nickel and titanium, woven into the cloth. It brings back the shirt’s original shape when heated with a hair dryer or worn in hot weather.
For police, or anyone else who might be a victim of violence, there is an “anti-violence” jacket made by Italian designer Alexandra Fede. The butter-yellow jacket can withstand bullets fired from a 9mm or 44 magnum gun, or knife wounds. And unlike bulletproof vests and the like, the jacket is remarkably light, 1.1 pounds to be exact. It looks a lot like a standard windbreaker. The fabric is based on Kevlar, a material five times stronger than steel developed by DuPont.
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Most of the i-wear items were still only prototypes. The fashion show was held to generate buzz about these intelligent outfits and to find partners interested in commercializing them. For now, the outfits work, but are very expensive to make. The anti-violence jacket costs around $2,900, as does the shape memory shirt. Pretty steep, even if it does give you a wrinkle-free look. The Babyguard is expected to sell in stores for $120 to $230, but only once Verhaert finds a partner interested in making the product for the consumer market.
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Everyone seems to agree these smart clothes need to get cheaper if we are ever going to see them in our local malls. Fede, the self-described technological stylist, argues that now is the right time to get into the market because clothing has become so much more than simple body covering.
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“People don’t want passive garments anymore, people want active garments that can do things.”