Hi-tech fashion: If the dress fits, print it!

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"Manus x Machina" looks at how fashion has adapted to the technological age, covering everything from the introduction of the sewing machine to innovations like 3D printing.

The dress code was ''tech white tie". Most guests interpreted this as ''wear something metallic", but a few took the theme seriously.


Karolina Kurkova's dress was embellished with LED lights that lit up in response to social media and Claire Danes wore a glow-in-the-dark Zac Posen princess dress.

So are dresses that have to be kept away from water what we have to look forward to fashion-wise?

Two fashion technology experts, Matthew Drinkwater, head of Fashion Innovation Agency at London College of Fashion and Alex Semenzato, founder and CEO of FashTech, share their predictions about what we'll be wearing 20 years from now.

We'll grow our own clothes

"Biocouture is going to be a big new development," said Semenzato. "We'll use bacteria to grow fibres in labs."

This is good news for the environment, which is being put under strain from producing fibres.

"It's also useful because biocouture will have self-healing qualities," adds Drinkwater. "So if you rip your T-shirt, it will grow back together."

You'll be able to print your online order in minutes

There have already been examples of 3D printing used in fashion, like knitwear company Pringle using the technique to create yarns and Michael Schmidt and Francis Bitonti's dress for Dita von Teese, which they 3D printed in 2013. But Semenzato said it's set to go mainstream.

"We're not far off from being able to order something online and print it at home - from browsing to wearing in 30 minutes."

Everyone from your mum to the CIA will be able to track you via your clothes

Buttons will become "intelligent chips" which will have the ability to track our movements and send data about what we're doing, said Semenzato.

Clothes will change colour when you're aroused

Lauren Bowker, founder of The Unseen, uses ''multisensory chromic colour change" inks which react to wind, temperature, air pressure and light.

But in the future, Semenzato said, this will develop so that brain activity, gravitational forces and mystical moon activity can be measured on our clothing.

This kind of thing is already happening with dresses that change appearance when they detect sexual arousal. Netherlands-based Studio Roosegarde created the Intimacy 2.0 dress which becomes transparent when it detects arousal.

No more washing

Semenzato said that nanotechnology will mean that ''clothes will wash themselves" - good news for laundry piles, bad news for dry cleaners.

Forgot to pack an umbrella? It won't matter

It was once thought that cagoules and other waterproof garments were the cutting edge of modern practical attire. But new advances mean that most clothes, no matter what materials they're made from, will soon be waterproof - or have the ability to become waterproof when drizzle sets in.

No need for clothes at all

"Augmented reality will have the greatest impact on fashion," claims Drinkwater. Within years we could have stopped wearing clothes altogether. When you walk into a room or down the street, you could decide what everyone will wear and programme it into your headset.

So if your colleague's garish ties bug you, the ability to change him into something more stylish could be a few years away. Handy for red-carpet disasters.

Source: Daily Telegraph

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