The First Wearable Electric Gown #WearableWednesday

How do you literally outshine 1200 bejeweled party guests at a masquerade ball? By dressing as the latest advancement in technology of course! This is what Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt did in the 1883 masquerade ball hosted by Alva Vanderbilt, an Adafruit forum member informs us. While other attendees dressed as notable figures such as a Venetian Princess, Queen Elizabeth, Daniel Boone, and Father Knickerbocker, Alice Vanderbilt chose to personify electricity as “Electric Light”, winning the prize of most memorable costume of the Gilded Ages and became possibly the first person to done a wearable electric dress.

Like all the costume from Vanderbilt’s masquerade ball, the Electric Light gown was meticulously crafted.

Her stunning gown was made of white satin and trimmed with diamonds. It came with hidden batteries, so Alice could light up like a bulb.

The gown also included a black velvet train, fringing, and other details. It is now in the collection of the Museum of the City of New York. In the late 19th Century, electricity was a new marvel and was at the cusp of changing the way people lived on a massive scale.

Columbia dry cell battery

The battery that Alice used for her gown was likely a variety of Georges Leclanché’s dry cell batteries, used to also power early telephones. Only a decade later would the first mass-produced model of dry cell batteries be introduced, making portable devices practical. The Electric Light gown was one of the first uses of portable electricity, and for the sole purpose of personal expression.

Fast forward 132 years, wearable technology is all the rage. A lot of interests around wearables have been focused on their functionalities. Perhaps a lesson to be learned from the first wearable electric gown is that craftsmanship and clever self expression is what makes a wearable memorable.


Flora breadboard is Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!


Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards

Join Adafruit on Mastodon

Adafruit is on Mastodon, join in! adafruit.com/mastodon

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.

Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Join over 36,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


Maker Business — “Packaging” chips in the US

Wearables — Enclosures help fight body humidity in costumes

Electronics — Transformers: More than meets the eye!

Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Silicon Labs introduces CircuitPython support, and more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi

Adafruit IoT Monthly — Guardian Robot, Weather-wise Umbrella Stand, and more!

Microsoft MakeCode — MakeCode Thank You!

EYE on NPI — Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey

New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — #NewProds 7/19/23 Feat. Adafruit Matrix Portal S3 CircuitPython Powered Internet Display!

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !



No Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.