From digital-display dresses to remote control couture, this book exposes the revolutionary interface between contemporary fashion and technology. As twenty-first century fashion makes a dramatic departure from traditional methods, designers no longer turn to the past for inspiration, but look to the hi-tech future. The result is techno fashion, the new wave of intelligent clothing that fuses fashion with communication technology, electronic textiles, and sophisticated design innovations that express new ideas about appearance, construction and wearability. Born out of the collaboration between fashion designers, researchers and scientists, this new dialogue could be the most significant design innovation in fashions history, or indicate its eventual demise. Either way, techno fashion promises to forever disrupt the historical narrative of fashion evolution. Through interviews with designers ranging from innovators such as Hussein Chalayan and Tristan Webber to mavericks like Alexander McQueen, Bradley Quinn examines the impact of this new direction. The fusion of design and technology introduced by Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake has created another direction for clothing, creating a new breed of designer-cum-scientist who redefines the way we dress, communicate, and even respond to environmental changes. As technology begins to shape fashion’s future, it redefines the boundaries between clothing, body and machine, forever transforming the ethics and lifestyles traditionally designated by codes of dress.
