Last year I met an amazing woman in Berlin, Lisa Lang, who created a start-up for fashion tech called ELEKTROCOUTURE. I’m specifically saying fashion tech here because she was sick of the typical wearable tech that was function without beautiful design. Lisa loves art and has an appreciation for line, texture and color; she was exploring how to combine her love of tech and fashion into something interesting. Well, last week she sent me a curious Tweet that said, “I’m sending you something that you may like for winter”. Well, this week I received a box filled with merino wool scarves. Of course they aren’t just any scarves, they have battery boxes/inverters hidden in pockets on the ends. They needed charging, so I ran off to plug them in with their matching USB cables. In an hour, look what I got!
The scarves use two super thin EL wire strands which are stitched to draw attention to certain design elements. In the blue scarf, the wire draws attention to the linear graphics, while in the orange scarf, the wire outlines the infinity shape. A built in button on each battery box allows for the EL wire to flash at different rates or remain solid. Lisa mentioned that the scarves I received are early prototypes, but she now has finished ones available on ASOS. They have a subtle TRON appearance with their black and white knit with blue glow, and I particularly like the design “A Spark of Ada” in honor of the first lady of programming. I remember Lisa and I celebrated Ada Lovelace Day last year. Could that have been the inspiration? Either way, I’m just so darn happy to see her pursue her dreams this way and it appears that she has the first fashion tech collection in retail. Chalk up another success story from last year’s Wear It Festival Berlin! Although a festival is a great time to experiment with glowy things, you don’t have to wait that long to incorporate it into your own fashion. Check out our learning guide on all things EL wire. You’ll find that this flexible medium offers wire, tape and panels. So, feel free to think of curvy designs or flat stuff. You can even laser cut fabric and add EL panels to make it backlit. Have fun exploring the world of fashion tech.
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!