GE1336 - Wearable Technology: Future Fashion and Textile

Fashion design is an art language representing cultural and urban influence. In the past decade, our society has been impacted by portable electronics that redefine the communication and entertainment in our daily life. Can this electronic revolution spread to the fashion design to make our outfit “smarter” in the manner that it may sense the exterior conditions (gesture, temperature, humidity, etc) and communicate with us (emitting light, making sound, or even posting on Facebook)? Recent development of electronic textiles and wearable microcontrollers has showed examples that embedded wearable electronics and reactive garments to create innovative fashion design. In this course, we will give an overview of a wide range of contemporary wearable technology projects, and discuss the cultural, technological and design aspects of fashionable technology. We will also introduce the basic electronic principle and the interplay with open-source hardware and software platforms to provide elementary but insightful techniques for students to start their own projects. Through the introduction of wearable technology, the course aims at inspiring students’ creativities and interests in generating innovative designs for future fashion and textile.