[gallery] Alas, a new electricfoxy project!
Zip is a garment that explores the aesthetics and interaction of wearable technology solutions that have built-in music controls. There are many products on the market today ranging from snowboard jackets to hoodies that allow you to connect your music player and control it using buttons integrated into the textiles. However, most of the solutions simply take the music player's hardware controls and replicate them on the sleeve or inside the lapel using eTextiles. Although still innovative, Zip investigates this further by:
Garment interactions Rather than replicating hardware controls into soft textiles, Zip also considers some of our basic garment mechanics and integrates the controls into the gestures that we already perform with our clothing.
Aesthetics Rather than simply attaching technology to clothing or hiding it in pockets, Zip considers the aesthetics of the technology, exposes it, and uses it as part of the overall styling of the garment.
Manufacturing We are starting to see more wearable technology enter the public's eye, yet producing tech garments is still one of the major road blockers due to high cost, lack of streamlined manufacturing processes and a variety of other variables. Zip is designed to be manufactured with both the pattern and ciruit design aimed for production.
Go to the project site to read all about it and watch the video.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this project!
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