Webelow Wear

While out at the infamous Duke Street skate park watching eight year olds kick and tres flip all over your faces, a light emerged and stole the attention.

Skatepark Kid A was rocking one of these boards and we had to take a closer look.  Purchased for only $60 bucks from Photon Light Boards, it’s not exactly wearable or a means to improve your skating abilities, but it looks pretty damn cool. Even cooler, Skatepark Kid A explained, are the moving images you can get of the board in action.

Above spending $60 for a light up board? Check out this Instructables and make them yourself!

Take your studio with you.

This is pretty cool.

The Square Band is a portable square wave synthesizer and is worn like a watch. The band includes eight tone buttons of varying octaves and a light sensor to change the pitch. Using a flexible solar panel, the band is recharged while worn and is powered for that a-ha moment of creativity.  It costs $35 with battery ($30 without) and there are only 4 in stock! But don’t fret – for you DIY’ers out there the creators are taking names for a potential DIY Kit.

Click here to hear a sample of the sounds. The first sample is a run through of each button and its corresponding tone in a controlled environment. The second sample is the tone of each button being pitch shifted via the on-board light sensor.

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Add the Arduino powered laces and Kayne, Weezy and Ricseasons  come to mind as  a few people we can see sporting these.

Check out these creative creations by Creative Recreation.

Via [Fashioning Technology]

MUST…HAVE…THESE…

Fiber Optic Heels??!!!  Jimmy Choo, please sit down.

Via [Ecouterre]

This is wearable hotness.

Maker Faire  participant Matthew Garten has created two Arduino Watches using Sparkfun materials. The Steampunk theme is probably the  favorite, but the Biopunk theme watch covered in stingray skin (??!) is pretty awesome too.

The watches use trackball control,  draw pictures, play games and connects to a glove with a myriad of sensors to collect a variety of data.

Instructions can be found on Instructables and more information on Optimized Force.

We tip our hat to you Mr. Garten

Via [Sparkfun]

We were at the carnival the other night fishing for ideas off of the Twirl-a-Whirl buzz and funnel-cake rush.   Just when we were commenting on how lame everyone was, we spotted a random guy at the snack bar with a pair of Jezign light-up shoes.

We first heard about these a couple of years ago on Talk2MyShirt and the shoe’s style came across as  impressive.  The style has a real urban flare and the shoes look good without the lights.  That’s should be step number one in any serious wearable product.  The technology should be molded around a good design.

After doing some research into Jezign, we were impressed to learn that they were available through Finish Line Shoes, a large shoe retailer that’s found across the country in almost every mall.  This is a major accomplishment for a wearable product in this early age.

The designer of Jezign is a former Howard University student and the company has filed several patents for wearable-oriented fashions.

We went looking for these shoes in the stores but unfortunately, we could never find them at any Finish Line in the DC area.  We were also unable to find the shoes on a site search.  The site store is online but it is also unavailable.   There are  few on eBay starting at $150.00 – $10  more than the original $140 as listed in 2008.

Are these  classics already?  We may have to snag a pair before eBay get’s out of control.

Inspired by the French fairy tale “Peau d’Âne”, Valerie Lamontagne is taking interactive wearables to new fashionable heights. The tale is of a widowed king who promises his dying wife to only marry a woman equal in her beauty and attributes.  The princess was the only qualified candidate and fearing a strange living situation, conspires with her fairy godmother to request a list of impossible demands of the King: a dress the color of the sky, a dress the color of the moon, a dress as bright as the sun, and finally, the hide of his marvelous donkey.

No gold-pooping donkeys here, but the dresses are friggin’ fierce. Lamontagne turns fantastical ideas into wearable creations using real time reactions to changing weather conditions.

The “Sky Dress” uses 14 tiny fans  linked to a  weather station to respond to the variation in wind speed and direction. Pockets of air expand in the parachute fabric to create an image of wind movement.

The “Moon Dress” conveys the changing phases of the moon using 14 glowing flowers that change color accordingly.

The 128 LED’s react to fluctuations in ultraviolet and solar radiation in the “Sun Dress”.  The lights flicker on and off, imitating the varying intensity of the sun.

Our vote: we likey.

Via [Ecouterre]

Ikea will unveil their new line of solar powered lamps and outdoor lighting.  This très chic line, called SOLIG, will be available in a few weeks.

Via [Inhabitat]

Solar power chargers are gaining a bit of popularity. So much so they’re just giving them away! Yes, it’s true! Check out Inhabitat.com to find out how you can win this very green, very awesome solar powered charger.

This is very impressive. The road to  integrating technology into clothing has been a fun and interesting ride. The latest stop on this innovation train is the Textile Breadboard from PlugandWear. Weaving non-conductive yarns with metal wire, the soft and flexible material is strong enough to withstand soldering without burning and gentle enough to easily be embedded into any design. You can find the prototyping breadboard at PlugandWear in the next few weeks.

It will be fun to play with this.

Via [Fashioning Technology]