This Wearable Tech Will Make You Look Like a City @elektrocouture #WearableWednesday
Whenever you aren’t sure what to wear, it’s so easy to go to black. It’s elegant, classic and shows off lines beautifully. Perhaps that’s why these new fashions presented by ElektroCouture have me excited—simple yet bursting with rich detail. If you don’t know ElektroCouture, they are creating bespoke fashions through collaborations with designers and technologists. Their latest work called Future Cities was created with designer Manu Varas. You will never guess what inspired the fashion!
Ornate, elegant attire from the early days of tennis in 19th century Victorian England is the inspiration for FUTURE CITIES. Refined classical designs like pleated skirts and Norfolk jackets are combined with sportswear elements and high tech materials to create a futuristic women’s wear look.
You can check out past Wimbledon winner Charlotte “Lottie” Dod if you want to see what tennis attire was like back in the day. For me, Manu’s work is like Buddhist robes. The sleeves in the shirt not only have a kimono feel, but they also remind me of origami folds. The real fun happens with the trousers, as they combine with a belt that has pleated fabric resembling a skirt. Not sure if you feel like a skirt or pants? Just wear both. The belt really is the design hub of this piece as it also allows for a decorative leather piece adorned with PVC tube LED flowers, serving up a reminder of the beautiful English gardens where tennis and tea were happening.
LEDs are also featured on the collar of the shirt as a soft glow on a ribbon. Just enough light to cause a stir, yet still shrouded by black fabric. Together the ensemble speaks of skyscrapers through its pleats while the LEDs represent the many lights which turn cities into magical places. Somewhere between The Matrix and New York lies this future city, and I’m in love! If you want to have your own lights in the city, check out our tutorial for an Interior Purse Light. It uses LED sequins, a GEMMA microcontroller and a conductive hook and loop closure that acts like a switch. Make your purse a little smarter and your life a little brighter.
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
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 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
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!