Fashion forward is taking on a whole new meaning with the emergence of smart fabrics. Moving beyond trends, these fabrics require labs and scientists instead of designers and workrooms and their debut is more likely to happen at universities and not Fashion Week.
Nanofabrics is an emerging branch of nanotechnology that deals with building specialized fabrics. This branch of science introduced active camouflage that hides the wearer by redirecting light from one side to the other. Nanofabrics even cushioned Olympic contenders at the 2006 games in Torino – most were wearing costumes that hardened on impact to protect the athletes if they hit the ground.
Recently scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed clothing that can listen and produce sound. (You’re not reading that wrong – I really said listen.)
According to the team at MIT, “applications could include clothes that are themselves sensitive microphones for capturing speech or monitoring bodily functions, and tiny filaments that could measure blood flow in capillaries or pressure in the brain.”
Taking it one step further, the decade-old research project aims to “develop fibers with ever more sophisticated properties, to enable fabrics that can interact with their environment,” MIT said.
For anyone who truly understands science, the researchers created these fabrics by manipulating the fluorine content to ensure its molecules remain lopsided. That imbalance makes the plastic piezoelectric meaning it changes shape when an electrical field is applied. And while we often hear our clothes rustle while we walk, these fabrics will produce a vibration that when connected to a power supply will emit an audible frequency.
The long term applications for these fabrics goes beyond clothing. One day, the application of these fibers could include loose nets that monitor the flow of water in the ocean and large-area sonar imaging systems. Explains MIT, “a fabric woven from acoustic fibers would provide the equivalent of millions of tiny acoustic sensors.”
Another team at MIT is giving the gift of sight to smart fabrics. Led by Associate Professor Yoel Fink, this team is working steadily towards the development of fabrics that can capture images. And while these fabrics pose a whole new challenge for privacy protection, at least soldiers can benefit. The seeing fabrics might someday give them the ability to look in all directions to identify threats. The light detecting fibers can act as a flexible camera and joined to a computer that provides information to a small screen attached to a visor.
These fibers (which are less than a millimeter in diameter) are composed of layers of light-detecting materials nested one within another. Those layers include two rings of a semiconductor material that are light sensitive. Four metal electrodes contact each of the rings, extending along the length of the fiber, for a total of eight. Each semiconductor ring with its attached electrodes is in turn encased in rings of a polymer insulator that separate it from its neighbor.
While the advanced capabilities are still a vision, the team of developers recently reported a “significant” advance: they used this fiber web to take a rudimentary picture of a smiley face.
On a smaller scale, MIT researchers are developing sensor-studded women’s clothing that could record assaults on them and store the data on a computer. Inspired by stories of violence against women in foreign countries, Yoda Patta (a doctoral student in materials engineering) wanted to provide more tools for a domestic violence victim to record attacks and to use that data to recognize escalating abuse. Not only would that (hopefully) prompt her to seek help, but it would also provide a record of attacks to use in court against the attacker.
Nanofabrics have even made it to the runway. Cornell student Olivia Ong recently debuted “smart textiles” including a jacket and dress made of nanofabrics. These items were coated in nano-sized bits of metal and are resistant to dirt, allergens and even break down harmful pollution before it reaches the wearer’s skin.
This high tech couture was brought to life in a lab at Cornell with the help of fiber sciences professor Dr. Juan Hinestroza. Together they immersed pieces of positively charged fabric in negatively charged, nano-sized bits of antibacterial silver. Because the pieces of metal are so tiny, the nanofabrics look and feel like normal fabrics so designers can create any piece they desire.
Imagine the possibilities for allergy sufferers and the cold & flu season if everyone could protect themselves with more than just pills and a shot!
While these aren’t the fabrics that grace Project Runway, the application of nanotechnology to textiles is opening a whole new door to truly fashion forward clothing.
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