Intelligent Fashion

Intelligent fashion–clothing manufactured with fabrics enabling digital components and electronics to be embedded in them to become interactive surfaces–has been an on and off topic in recent times, certainly more discussed in conferences and panel discussions rather than put into practice, with only a small bunch of start-ups investing their (limited) resources on this exciting field.

- Lorenzo Molina

This year, however, industry heavyweights have made a clear step to support wearable technology’s shift from offside, niche player into a widespread phenomenon. Last spring, Levi’s introduced a new interactive denim jacket within its Commuter line–aimed at urban cyclists–where technology-driven yarns powered by Google have been woven in, making possible for wearers to control their phones through a small tag placed on the jacket sleeve. Without the need to remove the phone out of the pocket and just by swiping or tapping the sleeve tag, one can take calls, adjust music volume or get an estimated time of arrival to a certain location wirelessly.