Webelow Wear

That Guy.

Yes, Apple has crossed over and is looking far into the future with new Senior Prototype Engineer, Richard DeVaul on the payroll. After an angry fist shaking session, we took a step back and examined the situation. While DeVaul has taken our dream path straight to Jobs (ha…a job with Jobs), us Mom-and-Pop wearable shops needn’t fear the Walmart-ing of our companies and brands. This, ladies and gentlemen, could mean an industry boom for wearables.

Wearables, like every other industry, has it’s layers. There are the couture designers trying to make you Gaga-ed out, the  Ipod wearable helping people-on-the-go move to a beat, the rave-scene wearable, the kitschy wearables products for all wearbles geeks,  the DIY wearable upgrade to entertain the wearbles tinkerers, the biometrics wearables used in military and medicine,  practical wearables for mass use and the home based wearables.  Apple’s position in the industry?  Considering the I-everything (Ipod, Iphone etc.) craze and DeVaul’s background, we’re in for a long ride of very cool, user friendly wearables.  But remember, this is one section of a growing industry!

Our advice: stay positive, stay informed, keep innovating because the industry was just put on the map in big way.

Via [ComputerWorld]

Well, we did it! We submitted our application for this year’s Crafty Bastards Arts and Craft’s Fair! We are exceptionally excited, and hope to see other wearables crafters out and about.  After speaking to two of the Directors of the fair, Kimberly Dorn and Sara Dick, we did not get the impression they were very familiar about wearables let alone expected other submissions. Great news for us, but we’re hoping there will be an active interest in our products and the industry.

So what are we bringing?  Inspired by Alison Lewis we’re bringing our own variation to the Light Up Purse.  The instructions are outlined in her book Switch Craft and is a great project for the intermediate crafter.  We’ve also resurrected our Street Lamp Shirt using two forms of wearable technology: Thermochromic Inks, and El Panels.  While our intention is to bring out our latest Thermochromic Ink designs inspired by global warming, the Thermochromic Street Lamp demonstrates just how cool this medium is. The EL Street Lamp is one of our first wearables project that’s seen many iterations and is still a very cool shirt. And because we are Webelow Wear and want you out there to pick up a needle, conductive thread and continuity checker, we’re holding a brief workshop on soft circuits where participants will create their own soft circuit patch using conductive threads, led’s, resistors and a battery.

We’re still only applicants and won’t know if we’re vendors until July 20^th, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed and hope to see you and all your wearables crafts on October 3, 2009!

More information on all projects coming soon!