What we wear defines us…and may save our lives, or at least, charge our phones.

Clothes serve a function. They protect us from the elements, keep us clean and warm, and oh yes, as far as Anna Wintour is concerned, the most critical reason: they keep us looking fabulous, which has become a near necessity of the modern world. We identify with what we wear as much as the world identifies us by our garments, particularly urban fashion. But what about clothing that say, charges your iPhone or detects cancer? What does that say about who we are? Meet wearable technology.

Technology has long been a part of clothing—from the creation of synthetic fabrics, to everyone’s favorite: Velcro—science is no stranger to style. Our foray into the futuristic gadget-driven hi-tech era is now seeing innovation become a driving force in fashion. You can get lost in the Pinterest boards for wearable tech, which I most certainly did. Somewhere between Tron and Lady Gaga, you have wearable technology. Here’s a glimpse…

Clothing

image: treehugger

1. Flutter Dress: Wearable technology isn’t just about getting online faster. The Flutter dress is designed for the hearing impaired. Created by Halley Profita, Nicholas Farrow, and Professor Nikolaus Correll at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Treehugger says the Flutter dress, “gives vibrotactile feedback in the direction of a loud sound or alarm to help those with hearing loss respond more intuitively to their external environment. The team also says that development of this wearable technology would also cut down on e-waste created by discarded hearing devices.”

image: first warning systems

2. Breast Cancer Detecting Bra: With a 90 percent success rate, it’s definitely a miracle bra. A Reno, Nevada medical technology company has created a bra that detects temperature changes in breast tissue, which can help discover tumors years before some mammograms.

image: ecouterre

3. Air Quality Detecting Dress: How about a dress that can tell you how clean the air is? This designer works with dyes that respond to subtle changes in the environment which will change the color of the dress.

image: ecouterre

4. LED Dress: Here’s a double whammy: Emily Steel’s “Little Slide Dress” is recycled from old film scraps and lit with LEDs that highlight the film images.

image: ecouterre

5. Thermoelectric Galoshes: Charge your iPhone with these galoshes while working or relaxing.

Accessories

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image: pebble

6. The Pebble: It’s a smart watch you synch with your wireless devices to see text messages, email alerts, phone calls. Oh yeah, it tells time, too.

image: google

7. Google glasses: Wearable computers that can record videos and take photos. Not available yet but Google plans to have them out this year.

image: everpurse

8. Everpurse: Don’t fumble around for your car or desk charger—just drop your iPhone into your Everpurse and it charges it for you.

image: designbuzz

9. Portable Washer: All your wearable technology will need a good warshin’ while you trek it around the globe and this little portable washboard is pretty darn nifty.

Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

The post Fashion Forward: 9 Wearable Technology Trends For Your Closet appeared first on EcoSalon.

Whether you tip toed through the end of 2010 holiday parties with a naughty or nice outlook is really something between you and the man with the untamed white beard. We are already gazing ahead to spring/summer 2011, particularly with numerous fashion week line-ups now at our slush-saturated heels. An upcoming fashion trend that might surprise you in this era of recession-studded austerity is an increasing fascination with macramé, crochet, and hand-made lace. Both Fashionising and Style.com have announced that caftans and hippie-chic ponchos have been upgraded to luxurious and supremely feminine offerings for 2011. A testimony perhaps to our desire for fashion that demonstrates the labor of love that goes into quality ethical construction and accessories that also tell a story?

Mark Liu, A/W 10′

As a fiber artist I am always looking for evidence of stunning handwork in key fashion investment pieces. I have also admired how both indie and sustainable fashion designers were the first to go “knotty by nature,” ahead of celebrated names like Celine, Catherine Malandrino, Gucci, or Pucci. London-based zero-waste designer Mark Liu even created a knotting system as a way to eliminate textile waste in the creation of his Winter 2010 collection, “Singularity Point.”

Eko-Lab, A/W 10′

There is definitely something alluring about donning fiber-crafted fashion – as the cord, yarn, or ribbon simply gets softer and more malleable with wear. Knotted couture is actually an ancient phenomenon. The earliest skirt on record is a Paleolithic mini-skirt made of knotted strings that were weighted with tiny pebbles that went klickety-klack as women swished in front of the campfire. We have evidently come along way, ladies, if Roberto Cavalli is now keen on creating body-hugging string gowns for the rock-chick Venuses of our times.

Eko-Lab Crochet Panties

Xing-Zhen Chung Hilyard and Melissa Kirgan of Eko-lab have incorporated some wild and knotty crochet into their sustainably minded fashion designs, principally as organic trim elements but also as a head-to-toe testament to their slow design alchemy. I loved the crocheted top hat and fringe shawl from their AW 2010/11 collection. These “conscious fashion” pioneers also know how to whip up some superfine and sexy crocheted bikinis that rival anything that our Stone Age counterpoints might have crafted.

Michelle Lane’s Japanese cord jewelry collections twine mysticism and the patterns of physics into sculpted wearable art that creates a certain intimacy between the wearer and the object. Lane views her necklaces and bracelets as being more of an extension of clothing than jewelry, and given that she crafts each piece by hand, there is no doubt that this designer has a healthy-preoccupation with organically generated and mindful, small-scale production.

Michelle Lane

Similarly, award-winning Brit designer Tanvi Kant explores wild knots and loopy crafting in her recycled sari fabric necklaces and free form textile creations. Not only is she resourceful in her deconstruction of discarded textile materials, but her one-of-a-kind designs also allow for expression of her cultural heritage and colorful roots. Each knotted design can be artfully shaped on the body according to the individual’s accessorizing whims. Also not to missed on the recycled scrap textile front is designer Michelle Lowe-Holder’s Victorian-style “ribbon Reclaim” neck wear crafted from off-cut fabrics from previous collections and reclaimed ribbon flocked together on a crochet base. (Thanks, Sass Brown, for this tip).

Michele Lowe-Holder

A quick peruse on eBay for eco-macramé or knotted accessories offers up a whole treasure trove of hemp rope bracelets, hippie-style belts, and yes, you guessed it, hanging plant holders. One seller who really stands out, though, is Imperishable Things. Knots can be deceptively simple, and these recycled cotton and nylon rope designs caught my eye with their chic domestic interpretation of cord. Don’t you just love it when yesterday’s clothesline can become tomorrow’s cocktail party conversation starter as noose-style bling?

Imperishable Things

Top Image, Tanvi Kant via Crafts Council UK

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