Someday Soon Our Clothing Will be as High Tech as Our Computers and Phones
Just like in the rest of the world, kids in elementary and middle school cycle through trends, sometimes at a furious pace. When I taught in Taiwan, kids would collect erasers shaped like just about anything you could think of — animals, food, and the like — and would line their desks with them at the beginning of every class. They never used them to actually erase, of course; they were more status then function. When I taught 7th grade down in the Denver suburbs, there were a couple months when Rubik’s Cubes were all the rage, and almost every day a kid would show up with one that was bigger and crazier than all the others. Right now, bottle flipping is delighting young people but making parents and teachers alike insane.
These are no different than the trends that I grew up with in the 90s. Slap bracelets, Pogs, Beanie Babies, and Tamagotchis, anyone? Those were the ones that made the headlines, but the trends I remember didn’t all sweep the nation. For example, for a few weeks while I was in 4th grade, carrying around rolled up papers with the plans for products that we invented was the height of cool in Julian Newman Elementary School in Athens, Alabama. You read that right. For some reason, we were all fancying ourselves Da Vincis and Michaelangelos, carrying around scrolls documenting the inventions that would make us famous.
The only one of what I am sure were my fabulous inventions that I actually remember were clothes that contained air conditioning and heaters in them. After all, I grew up first in Miami, Florida and then in northern Alabama, so at nine years old, I knew a thing or two about being miserably sweaty and hot. And while the winters of those places aren’t really known as being terribly frigid, they certainly can get nasty: Alabama winters are humid just like the summers, which results in an icy, bone rattling cold on just enough days to require a coat as part of your wardrobe. Fourth grade Kate was right: we should have clothes that we can remain cool and warm in, as appropriate to the season or activity.
As the 90s turned in to the aughts and now the 2010s (teens?), we have gotten closer to the invention dreams of my childhood. Advanced materials allow athletic clothing to have better moisture wicking and temperature control capabilities than ever before. And the advancements keep on coming.
The recent article, “11 Exciting New Materials that Designers Should Watch”, documents some of the advancements that we can anticipate seeing in the very near future. Colored conductive inks have the ability to turn the clothing on our bodies into closed circuits and controllers. Previously only available in shades of silver, conductive inks have now been developed in every color of the rainbow.
ThermalTech is a smart-light weight fabric that is excellent at absorbing heat (in the form of ultraviolet light) and then efficiently dispersing it throughout the rest of the fabric. ThermalTech has the ability to keep you warm without the bulk of thicker, heavier fabrics.
Finally, there is Flexible Battery, which addresses one of the biggest problems out there for smart product designers — battery life. Jenax inc. is developing this technology which is spun from flexible materials and can be flexed a couple thousand times without affecting performance. Take this plus the conductive inks I mentioned above and you could be more or less wearing your iPhone.
The possibilities are exciting. As the materials available to designers get more advanced, we will get closer to the dream of a 9-year-old living in a small town in the mid-90s. And maybe we will all be a little cooler as a result.
