Webelow Wear

Jeri Ellsworth in Diana Eng's LED Lashes

The world of Wearable Makeup has added some competition for Soomi Park’s show stopping LED Eyelashes. We were very impressed with Park’s fashionable wearable lashes, but we are excited to see the latest improvements to the idea.

Diana Eng, of Bravo’s Project Runway Season 2 fame, continues to innovate the fashion world with wearable projects, and has added LED Lashes to her long list of accomplishments.  Eng created these upgraded lashes for Jeri Ellsworth, winner of the 2012 Makey Hero Award, at the 2nd Annual Makey Awards at World Maker Faire.

Coin-cell battery pinned behind Jeri's ear

Eng’s lashes are a bit more dramatic with the use of feather lashes, and there’s no inclination sensor like Park’s lashes.  We found most notable, however, the consideration to decreasing the footprint of the project. Powered by a coin-cell battery, the wires between the LEDs and battery are much more subtle than Park’s project. Additionally, the idea of pinning the battery (wired to the LEDs)  behind the Jeri’s ear with wig tape and masking the pinned battery with Jeri’s hair is creative and clever.

We wonder if the next iteration of LED Lashes will be a wireless pair?

MACHINA's Midi Controller Jacket v1.0

MACHINA, a group of independent developers and designers living in Mexico,  has created the Midi Controller Jacket ($285-$2600), an advanced functional yet fashionable wearble, that transmits music notes to a speaker based on the user’s movements and interactions with the jacket sensors.

[Insert sped up record rewind sound here]

This means beat makers with dancing skills, or dancers with a penchant for music making can create killer beats with the pop-and-lock of an arm. Potentiometers, four push buttons, a flex sensor, and a joy stick can be configured by the user through a mobile app.

Making music not really your gig? No worries, because their fully funded kickstarter video explains that MACHINA is also working on a HACKSTORE with open source code, where users can upload their own presets and programs to add more functionality to the jacket like mixing videos or interacting with a Kinect.

With a ton of other products under their belt, including thermochromic t-shirts (that remind us of this interesting Polar Ice Cap Shirt), MACHINA is definitely a group of wearables celebrities we’ll be looking out for.

Check out their demo video below for more information.

Valérie Lamontagne of Electromode has a fabulous DIY LED Dress on sale for $250 Canadian Dollars. The symetrical or asymetrical designs use sensors that respond to changes in light, temperature or acceleration and activate a series of lights on the dress.

The kit includes:

• Dress pattern and graphics printed on 100% cotton
• Lining pattern and circuit guides printed on Polyester Blend
• Conductive zipper
• Programmed lilypad arduino
• 15 LEDs
• Conductive thread
• Batteries and charger included

We think this is a great project for students or rising enthusiasts to have hands-on experience in inetegrating werable technology into clothing.  This will inspire and hopefully motivate those DIY-ers to create other innovative wearable designs.

Via [FashioningTechnology]

Janet Hansen is President and Chief Fashion Engineer of Enlighted Designs, Inc., a California based business that creates custom illuminated clothing.  With over 10 years of experience, she founded the business to create her ideal position as a light-up clothing designer and it has taken her further than she ever anticipated. With a growing celebrity clientele that includes Kanye West, MIA, Daft Punks and Katy Perry (just to name a few) Hansen has mastered illuminated clothing for the stage performance. Janet is a one stop shop for light up clothing.  She makes her own controller circuits and seems to have a real pulse on making solid light-oriented wearables. Her company offers everything from ready-to-wear limited edition pieces like hats, ties and bras,  to more Lady Gaga-esque custom orders that fulfill your every visual need.  

Interested in learning how to light up your own pieces? Check out Janet’s Instructables on a LED and EL based designs.

Via [MrLightPainting]

Check out this funny parody video about iPad fashion accessories.  I honestly don’t think we’ll see wearables that integrate the iPad into your clothing but maybe people will start writing iPad apps that interact with wearable fashions.

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.

A very Gaga design inspired by the theme of climate change, the “Dandelion” demonstrates the reality of human and wind powered designs.

Created by Mary Huang and Jennifer Kay, the Dandelion is a wearable accessory that creates energy from wind and human movement. We think it’s a conscious nod to alternate power sources and a fashion forward creation.

Dandelion from Mary Huang on Vimeo.

Via [Ecouterre]

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]

There are quite a few interactive wearable designs out there that are “neat” and “cool”.  There aren’t many that are necessary and beneficial. Reading about the latest interactive designs by Lina Saleem and Fraunhofer IZM, I was struck with how the Hap Tickle Greeting Dress could actually be used for good.  While an interactive wearable design does not replace the real touch of humans, it does act as temporary substitute. Just as you can send a love one a reminder that you are thinking about them, you can calm a lost child by “stroking” their neck or calm a patient about to go into surgery with hopeful “strokes” on their wrist.   The dress is an awesome and creative idea, but it can be used to spark some innovation in industries where human touch is comforting but not always available.

Via [Talk2MyShirt]

Here’s a great article to leave the wearables tinkerers feeling inspired and hopeful:

Ecouterre’s “Ask A Designer” Series asked Syuzi Pakhchyan of Fashioning Technology  if wearable technology hype or hope?  Pakhchyan ended her hopeful response with a quote from educator and philosopher Marshall McLuhan:

“The book is an extension of the eye…Clothing, an extension of the skin…Electric circuitry, an extension of the central nervous system. Media, by altering the environment, evoke in us unique ratios of sense perceptions. The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act—the way we perceive the world. When these ratios change, men change.”

Pakhchyan explains how technology alone will not save our planet,  but rather the affect technology has on the psyche of people  will spark the change necessary to make our lives more sustainable.  The use of wearable technology will provide a window into how we as humans affect our world.  The transparency of production in the fashion industry, energy harvesting textiles and environmental pollutant sensing garments are some of the ways Pakhchyan predicts wearables will  directly affect people and subsequently change their minds and behavior.