Introduction

Wearables are on body products such as clothing, footwear, accessories and jewellery designed to create a communication/interaction enabled by digital technologies to amplify and extend natural ability and performance of the human body or add new functions to the user connecting them with their body, with other persons or objects and with the environment. One-off wearables have been created since the 1960s for use in technology showcases, performance and catwalk contexts, but were largely the domain of technologists and the maker movement. Only recently (from 2006) have wearables been mass produced in commercial products such as fitness trackers such as Nike+ and Fitbit, smart watches for example the Apple Watch, or jewellery such as the Motiv and ORII smart rings. This fashion-tech workshop introduces soft electronics and touch sensors, as well as basic Arduino coding.

Indicative Content

• Textile touch sensor building

• Beginners programming for Arduino

• Connecting a textile touch sensor to pre-written code for visualising touch data

• Design ideation

• Bonded and laminated textiles and the potential to create touch sensors using these processes

• Physical Computing Systems 

• Pitching a fashion-tech idea to funders and supporters 

• Intellectual Property for fashion-tech

• Industry projects

See also