Trends

CD-playing, self-drying textiles?

It seems that the next step is to have your hi-fi inside your clothing — literally. GAP has introduced Hoodie-O, a hoodie for children that has built-in speakers. Nike, Burton, The North Face and Marmot have already tested the market with similar niche products.

This spark of interest has culminated in what you call electro-functional fabrics (or e-textiles). These materials can illuminate, conduct, sense and respond. The whole drive behind this new fabric technology is creating materials that are active and not passive — they are not merely nice to look at and useful, but soon they will be able to respond to body functions. Earlier this year, Textronics Inc, formerly part of Invista, launched a prototype of a new kind of under-garment that senses heart rate and perspiration.

But how does it work? Nano-technology works on a nano-scale, where each nano-scale is 1-mil times smaller than a grain of sand. Nano-technology does not only refer to the size of material being used, but also to how the material is engineered to perform special functions. Nano-technology does not impact on features like air flow.