Fashion meets tech at Second Skin exhibit

Can you imagine wearing a dress that could charge your gizmos or tell you if the air around you is bad? Well, some people already are, and they showed off their creations at the Exploratorium in San Francisco last week where lucky attendees caught a glimpse of the future of fashion on opening night. Second Skin, a fashion meets tech exhibit, is being hosted at the museum now through September, so go check it out if you're in the Bay Area. Here are some of the outstanding designs you can expect to see:

Masticator: Takehito Etani's Masticator bone headgear beeps and lights up to give the wearer audio-visual feedback when chewing slowly during meals. It's equipped with MAST-I technology to track how many times the masseter muscle pops out, helping it keep count of the number of times the person chews. With each bite, those around him will also hear a beep, and see the chewing count on the LED digital display that rests on the wearer's chest.

EPA Dress: Average folks don't have the tools to monitor air quality, but Stephanie Sandstrom created a dress that's visibly sensitive to bad air around it. The dress has a fire alarm mechanism embedded on an LED belt attached to six Nitinol wires tacked onto the skirt. When the wearer is around smoke or car exhaust, the dress shrivels up and changes color to caution others of the bad air around them. Very cool.

Piezing Dress: For years, designers have been trying to make stylish clothes with embedded solar panels to power our gear, but seriously, would you ever wear this? Amanda Parkes is trying something entirely different with a dress that uses the wearer's movement to generate power. Her Piezing dress gives power dressing a whole new meaning as it contains Piezoelectric material around the joints that generate electricity in response to movement. All the power is then stored in a small battery that can later be used to charge your gizmos. How cool is that?

Not all the designers can be at the exhibit, but I'll be meeting with some of them this coming Tuesday, May 6th so expect video of the designs in action.

On a sidenote: Four artists will be demoing their designs on May 6th. Bloggers/journalists interested in attending the exclusive May 6th mini-event, should contact Leslie Patterson for an invite.