Geek Chic: When Fashion Meets Technology

  Since the lycra pants that were fashionable at the Starship Enterprise, visions of what we carry in the future, often to ridiculous.

Hidden from portable music players LED collars to clothing with sensors and son, it's all a little crazy, catering for a perceived gap in the market, which often does not need filling.

For a future of fashion lies not in design, but intelligent textiles.

And it does not take much smarter than the approach of the designer Suzanne Lee, who literally grows her own clothes to get.
Tissue Fermentation

They came up with the idea, find a book about the modern look in 50 years.

"I had a conversation with a biologist who raised the idea of ​​growing a garment in a lab," she told the BBC.

In his studio in London, she is doing just that.

With a recipe for green tea, sugar, yeast and bacteria, it is able to "grow" a material she describes as a "vegetable leather".

The material takes about two weeks to develop and can be folded around a form - she made a dress out of the traditional model of a tailor, but handbags and furniture are also possibilities.

Alternatively, they can be dried and cut and sewn in the traditional way.

Currently, the material is biodegradable and after five years, is unacceptable hardship and decay.

"At this point, can you compost it down with all your vegetable peelings other," said Ms. Lee.

The fact that the material is cheap to make, cut a large number of processes associated with making clothes and is environmentally friendly, ie it has already attracted interest from several apparel manufacturers worldwide.

"The fashion and textile industry is desperate to reduce their carbon footprint, looking for materials that are sustainable," she said.

The next step will be to find a way to keep clothes longer.

"To where should it be to get with some cutting-edge science, but to be with the right financing in place, it has the potential for a radical alternative to the traditional textiles," she said.

Operating Engineers

Although computer-aided design and design (CADD) is not a new technology, it is rare in the fashion world has been used previously, but French designer Julien Fournie wants to change that.

Mr. Fournier began to work in the fashion industry such as Jean-Paul Gaultier, but these days it is more likely found hanging with the engineers with the fashionistas.

He joined with engineers from Dassault Systemes, a French software company that creates 3D models in general for the automotive and aerospace industries.

The engineers decided they could turn to software design, sketches, Mr. Fournier in his next collection.

"At first I was like a lab rat, many engineers and geeks around me. But they heard that I need to find solutions. They filmed my work habits, she wanted to know how I can do," he said.

Mr. Fournie recently experimented with making clothes neoprene, a type of rubber.

It is a difficult material to work and seamstresses Mr. Fournier suggested that embroider the only way, it would be to use glue.

"In my opinion, a very sexy dress does not hold," he said.

So he handed the problem to engineers.

"The correct pressure for the needle so that it were not against the rules," he said.

The software can also work as you drape some cloth, eliminating the need for costly experiments with the real thing.

"Before I got to the front, rear and side windows feature is used, and it was difficult. Now I can sketch out properly in 3D. I have to test a digital library of fabric and I can explore new shapes and silhouettes.

I'm like a kid with a new toy, "he said.

Fashionlab also working on a "magic mirror" that could potentially be used in stores in shopping streets, so people can see a virtual image of themselves in different outfits.

"A business can have a magical mirror with a personal avatar that can use your exact measurements to show you how new clothes would be on," said Jérôme Bergeret, director Fashionlab.

He admits that the project is still in its infancy, and perhaps three to five years before it becomes reality.

The user can start on the drawing board of a designer, but it ends up on the high street, and here the effects of technology are going to have to date been mostly negative.

Online retailers are nibbling at the High Street and stop shops, retailers are looking for technology to help customers in our stores.

Fashion at the event in the future Westfield shopping center in West London, buyers recently got an insight into how businesses can use the technology in the coming years to adopt.

In addition to tweets and Facebook mirrors stalls, so that customers share their purchases on social networks, consumers were also invited to create their own "mood boards" with a huge touchscreen.

"This technology allows us to give the property back to the buyers, they can organize their own collections," said Ryan Myf, Westfield's head of marketing.

But while consumers and retailers said they liked the technology at the show, she admits that Westfield is no long-term commitment is such gimmicks.

The stores are still in the process, as they look to the future, she said.

"The technology is irreversibly change the habits of traditional shopping streets."

"The question is how to take advantage of the digital environment and a more pleasant environment for bricks and mortar buyers"